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" There is, they say ( and I believe there is), 
A spark within us of th' immortal fire, 
That animates and molds the grosser frame ; 
And when the body sinks, escapes to heaven, 
Its native seat, and mixes with the gods. 
Meanwhile this heavenly particle pervades 
The mortal elements ; in every nerve 
It thrills with pleasure, or grows mad with pain. 
And, in its secret conclave, as it feels 
The body's woes and joys, this ruling power 
Wields at its will the dull material world, 
And is the body's health or malady," 



>*<c 



THE 



MENTAL-CURE, 



ILLUSTRATING THE 



INFLUENCE OF THE MIND 

ON 

THE BODY, 

BOTH IN HEALTH AND DISEASE, 



THE PSYCHOLOGICAL METHOD OF TREATMENT. 

— 

BY REV. wf F. EVANS, 
n 

Author of "The Celestial Davm" "The Happy Islands" 
" The New Age audits Messenger'' &c. 



" 'Tis the great art of life to managp well 
The restless mind." — Armstrong. 



BOSTON: 

H. H. & T. W. CARTER, 25 BROMFIELD ST. 
1869. 



"Hi* 01 



c*fi 



X 



Entered according to Act Of Congress, in the year 1S00, by 

WARREN B\ EVANS, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of 
New Hampshire. 



GIFT 

ESTATE OF 

WILLIAM C. RIVES 

APRIL* 1940 



Stereotyped and Printed 

at the 

Book Manufactory 

of the 

Claremont Manufacturing Company, 

Cliircinont, N. II. 



PREFACE 



The design of the following treatise is to explain the 
nature and laws of the inner life of man, and to contribute 
some light on the subject of Mental Hygiene, which is 
beginning to assume importance in the treatment of disease, 
and to attract the attention of physiologists. We have 
aimed to illustrate the correspondence of the soul and body, 
their mutual action and reaction, and to demonstrate the 
causal relation of disordered mental states to diseased phys- 
iological action, and the importance and mode of regulating 
the intellectual and affectional nature of the invalid under 
any system of medical treatment. We have also endeavored 
to demonstrate the value, as remedial agencies, of those 
subtle forces, both material and spiritual, which the 
improved science of the age is beginning to recognize, and 
to explain the laws of our interior being which render the 
so-called magnetic treatment so efficient in the cure of 
diseased conditions of the organism, and which bids fair to 
supplant the current and longer established therapeutic 
systems. We have pointed out the laws that govern the 
action of mind upon mind, and the transmission of vital 
force from one person to another, and the potent influence 
of our inward states in the generation of pathological 
conditions of the body, and in its restoration to health. 
While it does not profess to be a work on mental philosophy, 
some discussion of the nature and laws of the mind seemed 
to be necessary to a proper understanding of the general 



IV PREFACE. 

subject of the volume. We have endeavored to prove the 
essential spirituality of human nature, to elucidate its hid- 
den, undeveloped powers, and its vital and sympathetic 
relations to an ever-present world of spirits interfused within 
this outside circumference of being. This latter idea is 
beginning to be looked upon as something more than a 
traditionary theory, an item in a creed, by a large and 
rapidly increasing number of intelligent persons in all coun- 
tries of the world, and is a demonstrated fact that is taking 
its proper place in the positive science of the day. It is to 
be hoped the volume may prove acceptable and useful to 
all who feel an interest in the imperfectly explored region 
of human knowledge into which it attempts to penetrate 
with the light of philosophy. It was far from our design to 
present to the public an exhaustive treatise on the subjects 
discussed, but to give, with as much brevity as was consist- 
ent with perspicuity, fruitful hints and suggestions, to 
stimulate thought and lead to further inquiries. The author 
had but little in works on mental and physiological science to 
guide him in his investigations, but was under the necessity 
of following the light of his own researches, experiments, 
and intuitions. He claims no infallibility for his opinions 
and conclusions, but submits them to the candid judgment 
of all men who love truth for its own sake. 

Claeemont, N. H., Feb. 22, 1869. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE RELATION OF THE HUMAN MIND TO GOD. 

Importance of a Knowledge of God. — The Central Life. — 
Ubiquity of it. — The whole Idea of God included in Love 
and Wisdom. — He is the Primal Cause. — The Divine 
Unity. — Tri-personality impossible. — Man a Divine In- 
carnation. — God in Christ. — Humanization of Deity. — 
All men Sons of God. — Teaching of the Oriental Philoso- 
phy. — Evolution of the Divine Element. — Jesus intro- 
duced a Higher Type of Humanity. — The Allness of God. 

— His Personality and what is meant by it. — His Omni- 
presence. — Where to find Him. — Madam Guy on. — The 
two Aspects of Human Nature. — Medical Science Super- 
ficial. — The Root of our Maladies 19 

CHAPTER II. 

THE MIND IMMATERIAL, BUT SUBSTANTIAL. 

What is meant by Immaterial Substance. — What by Matter. 

— The Properties of Matter are reducible to the Idea of 
Force. — Mind the Exhibition of a higher Force. — All 
Force is Spiritual. — It Originates in God. — Love and 
Wisdom the First Substance and Force. — Immortality. — 
The Ground of it. — Life a Persistent Force. — Its recep- 
tive Forms Evanescent. — The Brotherhood of Man. — 
Universal Fatherhood of God. — Moral Influence of such 
an Idea 27 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 

ON THE FORM OF THE MIND. 

Mind not a mathematical Point nor a Monad. — The Relation 
of Substance and Form. — Perfection of Form belongs only 
to the Realm of Spirit. — The Soul the inner Manhood. — 
Humanity of Angels. — Disembodied Souls in the Human 
Form. — Proved by its being a Necessity of Thought. — 
Formlessness and Nonentity equivalent. — The Spirit an 
Organization. — Omnipresence of it in the Body. — Pla- 
tonic Idea of it. — Pythagorean Conception of it. . 34 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE DIVISION OF THE MIND INTO TWO DEPART- 
MENTS. 
The two primary Faculties. — The Love. — The Intellect. — 
All Love and Truth Divine. — Why they appear our own. 

— The Divine Nucleus of our Being. — Twofold Division 
of the Mind. — The Will and Love identical. — Motive 
Power and the Love. — The self-determining Power. — 
The only Life. — What is it to will a thing? — Practical 
Value of the Doctrine 39 

CHAPTER V. 

THE RELATION OF THE INTELLECT TO THE 

LOVE. 
Derivation of the Intellect from the Love. — Importance of 
this Truth in Philosophy. — Swedenborg. — G. H. Lewes. 

— Love the Center of our Being. — The Will and Under- 
standing are like Substance and Form. — Relation of 
Thought to Affection. — Reaction of the Intellect upon the 
Love. — Correlative Spiritual Forces. — Freedom is Har- 
mony. — Spiritual Health and Disease. — Relation of our 
Mental and Physical States. — Importance of regulating 



CONTENTS. Vll 

the Loves. — Solifidianism based on a wrong Conception 
of our Mental Nature 45 

CHAPTEK VI. 

THE DOCTRINE OF DEGREES. 

Three distinct Planes of Mental Being. — Difference between 
this and the Common Trichotomous Division of the Mind. 
— Each Degree a distinct Mental Nature. — The Outermost 
Range. — The Senses. — Animality. — The Psychical man. 
— The Spiritual. — Consciousness. — Second Degree. — The 
Rational Mind. — Emancipation of the Intellect from the 
Dominion of the Senses. — Somnambulism. — Clairvoyance. 
— Cognition of Spiritual Things. — Progress an Evolution. 

— Education an Educing of what is within. — The Phe- 
nomena of the inmost Degree. — Perception or Intuition. 

— All truth self-evident to it. — The Divine Internal. — 
The Conjunction of the Divine and Human. ... 50 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE SPIRITUAL BODY— ITS NATURE AND USE. 

The mind the real Selfhood. — Intermediate Essences. — The 
Spiritual Body a Mediating Principle. — The Proof of its 
Existence. — Testimony of Paul. — Of Swedenborg. — Nei- 
ther insisted upon. — Objection answered. — Shown to be 
the Seat of Sensation. — It is the prior seat of all Patholog- 
ical States of the external Organism. — Testimony of Clair- 
voyance. — Of Conscionsness. — The Mental Phenomena 
following Amputations. — Explanation of them. — Proof 
of Immortality from this Source. — A Succession of Organ- 
ized Forms in Man. — The Osseous System. — The Muscu- 
lar. — The Venous and Arterial. — The Cerebro-Nervous. 

— Being is real and vital as it becomes Interior. . 58 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

ON THE EMANATIONS OF MIND, OR SPIRITUAL 
SPHERES. 

Material Effluvia. — Odorous Particles. — Evaporation. — 
The mental Sphere a Vibrating Force. — Importance of 
the Doctrine in Mental Science. — The Sphere the outgo- 
ing of the Love. — Mental States Contagious. — What is 
Influence? — What is Divinity? — Sympathy and Antipa- 
thy explained. — Spiritual Remoteness and Propinquity. — 
Pathological States of Mind and Body traced to the Sus- 
ceptibility of the Patient. — Subtle Forces of Nature as 
Therapeutic Agencies. — Connection of the Mental Sphere 
with the bodily Emanations. — The Imposition of Hands 
not a mere Symbol. — The Breath. — The Source of our 
Mental Disturbances. — How to be Useful. ... 68 

CHAPTER IX. 

VF THE DOCTRINE OF INFLUX, AND THE RELA- 
TION OF MAN TO THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

The Nature of Influx. — The Unity of Life. — The Mind not 
self-moved. — Thought not self-originated. — Teaching of 
Paul. — Of John the Baptist. — Doctrine of Innate Ideas 
overturned by Locke. — Truth transmissible. — Man's 
Vital Relation to the other World. — Quotation from 
Swedenborg. — All Knowledge an Inspiration. — Modern 
Spiritualism. — How the Old Testament Scriptures were 
given. — The Demon of Socrates. — Jesus on the Mount. — 
John in Patmos. — Swedenborg's Intercourse with the 
Spiritual World. — Sensational Philosophy Unsound. — 
Locke's Essay. — Condillac. — Original Suggestion. — 
How Knowledge is Communicated. — Propagation oi 
Mental States. — Mesmeric State how produced. . . 76 



CONTENTS. IX 

CHAPTER X. 

THE EELATION OF SOUL AND BODY, AND OF 
THE MATERIAL TO THE SPIRITUAL REALM. 

Three Theories respecting the Connection of the Body and 
the Spirit. — Aristotle. — Cartesian Doctrine. — Leibnitz. 

— Man a Microcosm. — The Body an Effect. — The Face 
and our inward Feelings. — The States of the Mind affect 
the Body. — Fear and Asthma. — Disease originates in 
abnormal Mental States. — Chemical Preparations inade- 
quate to a Cure. — Quotation from Dr. Taylor. — Mind 
the organizing Force. — Relation of the Visible to the 
Invisible World. — Where is the Spiritual Realm? — Mate- 
rial things inclose a Spiritual Essence. — Pneumatopathy 
or Mental Hygiene 87 

CHAPTER XI. 

CORRESPONDENCE OF THE BRAIN AND THE 

MIND. 

The Brain the Organ of the external Manifestation of the 
Mind. — Its Extension into the Body. — Its two Substances 
and their Correspondence. — The Positive and Negative 
Forces. — The Brain first formed in the Fetus. — Pleurality 
of its Organs. — Sympathetic Connection of the Bodily 
Organs with it. — The three Brains. — Their Relation to 
the Degrees of the Mind. — Their independent Action. — 
The Cerebrum and its Correspondence. — The Cerebellum. 

— Sleep-Waking. — Mental Exaltation. — Freedom from 
the bodily Senses. — The Medulla Oblongata. — State of the 
Mind and Body in the Trance. — Scientific View of Death. 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE HEART AND LUNGS, AND THEIR RELATION 
TO THE LOVE AND INTELLECT. 

Two Universals of the Mind. — Answering Organs of tho 
Body. — The Extension of the Heart into the System. — 
The Veins and Arteries. — The Heart corresponds to the 
Affectional Nature. — Proof. — Influence of our Emotional 
States upon its Action. — And upon Secretion and Nutri- 
tion. — Subtle Element of the Blood. — The Diffusion of 
the Pulmonary Substance. — The Lungs derived from the 
Heart. — They Answer to the Intellect. — Effect of the 
States of Thought upon Respiration. — Relation of Respi- 
ration to Voluntary Motion. — To the Sensibility of the 
Nerves. — Influence of Anaesthetic Agents. — How the 
Mind can increase or diminish vital Action. — Sympathetic 
Movement of the Heart and Lungs. — How to regulate 
the Action of the Heart. — How to change our Emotions. 

— Influence of our Mental States upon the vital Functions. 
— True Method of Study in Natural Science. — The New 
Age. — Immanence of the Spiritual World. . . . 109 

CHAPTER XIII. 

CORRESPONDENCE OF THE STOMACH AND THE 

MIND. 
The Office of the Stomach. — The Digestive Process. — What 
answers to it in the Mental Economy ? — Therapeutic In- 
fluence of new Ideas. — Mental Medicine. — Two Stomachs. 

— Dual Nature of Memory. — Common Forms of Speech 
Recognizing the Relation of the Stomach to the Memory. 
— Mental and Bodily Growth. — Mental Vigor necessary 
to Digestion. — Perpetual Spiritual Adolescence. — What 
is Old Age? — How to be always Young. — Diseases which 
are attended with a Loss of the Power of Attention and 
Memory , 120 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER XIV. 

THE REFLEX INFLUENCE OF THE STOMACH 
UPON THE MIND. 

Sensitiveness of the Epigastric Nerves. — Seeress of Prevorst. 
— Reading with the Pit of the Stomach. — • The interior Es- 
sence of things. — Their Influence. — Psychometry. — Ef- 
fect of Medicines held in the Hand. — Philosophy of Amu- 
lets. — Action of the hidden Properties of things upon the 
Reticular Membranes of the Stomach. — Effect of Food 
upon the Mind. — The Philosophy of Dieting. — Mental 
Stimulus necessary to Digestion. — The Condition of the 
Stomach and our Feelings. — Action and Reaction. — The 
Law of Sympathy between us and those in the Interior 
Realms. — Effect of happy Frames of Mind upon the Epi- 
gastric Nerves. — Mental States attending Various Condi- 
tions of the Stomach. — Plunger and its Mental Effects. — 
The States of the Stomach and Crime. — Hygienic Value 
of Cheerfulness and other Affectional States. . . . 132 

CHAPTER XV. 

EXCRETIONS OF THE BODY AND THE MIND, 
AND THEIR RELATION. 

The Excreting Organs and their Use. — Their irregular 
Action a fruitful Source of Disease. — Influence of the 
Mind upon them. — The Lower Intestine and the Brain. — 
Influence of certain Mental States upon it. — Diseases of 
the Rectum and their Mental Cause. — How Cured. — 
Office of the Liver. — Chemical Nature of the Bile. — Sym- 
pathy between the Liver and Kidneys. — Connection of 
the Liver with the Brain. — Correspondence with the 
Mind. — Influence of Conscience upon the Hepatic Func- 
tions. — State of the Mind in Duodenitis. — The Cure. — 



Xll CONTENTS. 

Melancholy and the Liver. — Elimination of the effete 
Products of the Mind. — Mental Influence upon the Renal 
Functions. — Diabetes. — The Connection of the Kidneys 
with the Brain. — Causality. — Excretory Action of the 
Intellect. — Renewal of the Spirit. — Perpetual Progress. 

144 

CHAPTER XVI. 

THE SKIN. ITS CONNECTION WITH THE INTER- 
NAL ORGANS, AND CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
THE MIND. 

Structure and Functions of the Skin. — Amount Secreted by 
k daily. — The Period in which the Body is renewed. — 
The Chemical Laboratory of the System. — Unrecognized 
Sources of Nutrition. — How prolonged Abstinence has 
been sustained. — Effect of Medicines applied to the Skin. 
— Psychological Remedies. — Cellular Tissue. — Mucous 
and Serous Membranes. — The Physiological Condition in a 
Common Cold. — The Action of the Mind upon the Skin. — 
A Psychological Sweat. — Effect of Sleep. — State of the 
Mind underlying Consumption. — Control over the Action 
of the Skin by the Magnetizer. — Mind the only Causal 
Agent. — The Ablutions of the Jewish and Mohammedan 
Laws. — Spiritual Effects of Bathing 161 

CHAPTER XVII. 

THE SENSES. THEIR CORRESPONDENCE, AND 
INDEPENDENT OR SPIRITUAL ACTION. 

Sensation a Spiritual Phenomenon. — Vision without the ex- 
ternal Eye. — Somnambulism. — Independent Clairvoy- 
ance. — The Relation of the Eye to the Intellect. — Sym- 
pathy of the Eye with other Organs. — The Spiritual Eye 
can discern Material Things. — The Sense of Hearing. — 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

The Mental Act underlying the Sensation of Sound. — Dif- 
ferent Forms of Deafness. — How to Treat them. — The 
Connection of Voluntary Hearing with the Organ of Cau- 
tiousness. — The seat of Otalgia. — Clairaudience or Spir- 
itual Hearing. — The Sense of Touch. — Its general Diffu- 
sion. — Its Eelation to the Love. — Communication of life 
by the Hand. — The sense of Smell. — Its Spiritual Action. 
— Taste. — Its Use. — The Spiritual Senses. — How they 
are opened. — Diseased Conditions in which the Inner 
Senses are emancipated . ' *. . . 176 

CHAPTEE XVIII. 

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE EXPLAINED. 

Theories Concerning the Nature of Life. — Not the Eesult of 
Organization. — The Mosaic Theory. — Electro-Biology. — 
The Nervous Fluid. — Definition of Life by Bichat. — Cole- 
ridge. — Schelling. — De Blainville. — Comte. — Herbert 
Spencer. — Swedenborg. — Its inmost Degree is Love. — 
Organic and Inorganic Forces. — Life a Force. — Correla- 
tion and Equivalence of Mental Forces. — Influence of the 
Emotive Life upon the Intellect. — Relation of Vital Force 
and Animal Heat. — Health is Equilibrium. — Disease an 
Inharmony. — Source of Animal Heat. — Heat a Form of 
Motion. — The Vital Movements. — The Heat of the Sun 
the Living Force of Nature. — God's Love an all-pervad- 
ing Life. — The External lives from the Internal. — Effect 
of Sensation upon the Body. — Influence of the Emotions 
and Affections upon the organic Functions. — Secretion. — ■ 
Muscular Contractility. — The Sexual Instinct. — Its Influ- 
ence upon the Involuntary Physiological Processes. 
Importance of Regulating the Affections. — Impartation of 
Life. — Disease and Selfishness. — The Divine Order of 
Human Existence 198 



XIV CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

MENTAL METAMORPHOSIS ; OR HOW TO INDUCE 
UPON OURSELVES ANY DESIRABLE MENTAL 
STATE. 

Relation of Mental Disturbance to Disease. — Therapeutic 
Spiritual Forces. — Our Emotions involuntary. — Self-Con- 
version. — A General Law stated. — Relation of Form to 
Internal Character. — The Lesson taught us by the Stage. 
— Expression of our Inward States by the Face. — How to 
effect a Change in our Feelings. — Hygienic Value of the 
Law. — Inspiration and Respiration. — Soul and Breath. 
— Peculiar Sensation attending Psychological Influence. — 
Nearness of the Inner Realm. — How to be Inspired. — 
Breathing of the Soul. — The Respiration peculiar to all 
depressing Mental States. — How to relieve ourselves of 
them. — Usefulness of the Swedish Movements. . . 222 

CHAPTER XX. 

THE COMMUNICATION OF LIFE AND OF SANA- 
TIVE MENTAL INFLUENCE. 

The Primal Source of Life. — Man imparts life to all below 
him. — Vital Force Communicable. — How Jesus gave his 
Life a Ransom for Many. — His cures not Miraculous in 
the Theological Sense. — The royal Touch for Scrofula. — 
Sanative Influence of the Hand. — Knowledge is Power. — 
Mental Conditions necessary to a Cure. — Faith a Spiritual 
Force. — Its Therapeutic Influence. — The Cure of a Par- 
alytic by Davy with a Thermometer. — Effect of Fear. — 
Case of Hydropobia caused by it. — Experiment with four 
Russian Criminals. — The Rose-water Cure. — Vital Force 
and animal Heat correlative. — How Heat is generated 
and transmitted. — Therapeutic Influence of Friction. — 
Compression. — Percussion. — Motion. — Adaptation of the 



CONTENTS. XV 

Hand as an Instrument for Communicating Life. — Effi- 
ciency of the Duplicated Movements accounted for. — How 
to Induce upon a Patient the proper State of Mind. — Po- 
larity of our Feelings. — Inverted Action of the Cerebral 
Organs. — Restoration of the Equilibrium. — Mental Vi- 
bration. — How Jesus healed the Sick. — Health is Conta- 
gious. — Spiritual Inoculation. — Mental Leaven. . 237 

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE MIND NOT LIMITED BY SPACE IN THE 
TRANSMISSION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AND 
SANATIVE INFLUENCES. 

Freedom of the Mind from Spatial Restraint. — Spiritual 
Presence. — Mental Locomotion. — Physiological influence 
of Psychological Impressions. — Transmission of Mental 
Force. — The Model Man and Great Physician. — His Free- 
dom from Material Limitations. — The Interior State in- 
tensely Positive. — The Prayer-Cure. — The Laws govern- 
ing it. — Love the Healing Power. — The Mind to be first 
Healed. — The Mystery of the Cures wrought by Jesus 
explained. — How to Convert Souls without a Miracle. — 
Nature of the Mental Sphere. — Healing at a Distance. — 
The Laws by which it is Effected. — Directions given in 
regard to it. — Communication of abnormal States by 
Sympathy. — Practical Value of the Law. . . . 259 

CHAPTER XXII. 

APPETITES, INTUITIONS AND IMPRESSIONS, AND 
THEIR USE. 

Essential Spirituality of Man. — The Vis Medicatrix Natures 
is a Mental Force. — The Fetal Growth. — Incubation. 
— The Nature and Office of the Appetites. — Their Pre- 
scriptions. — Illustrations. — Nutriment for the Mind. — 



XVI CONTENTS. 

Spiritual Starvation. — Gibeonitish Crusts. — Voices with- 
out a Sound. — Spiritual Impressions. — A deep and calm 
Revealing. — A Law of the Spiritual Life. — The Com- 
munion of Saints. — Education of our Intuitions. — The 
Inner Language. — The Cogitatio Loquens. — Intuitional 
Prescriptions. — Mental Telegraphing. — Madam Guyon 
and her Confessor. — Development of our hidden Powers. 
. . . , 278 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE SANATIVE POWER OF WORDS. 

The Words we utter embody our Mental Force. — They are 
the Index of Character. — How our Mental States affect 
our Words. — Their Permanence in the Memory. — Their 
lasting Influence. — Fact given by Coleridge. — Dr. Rush. 

— The Power of Written Words. — Books have Life. — 
Effect of it upon the Pyschometer. — Prescriptions of 
Frederica Hauffe. — Psychical Remedies. — The Creative 
Utterances of Jesus. — Frederic Von Schlegel's Philosophy 
of the Communicated Word. — Therapeutic Force of 
Kind Words. — Testimony of Baglivi 296 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE RELATION OF MENTAL FORCE TO PHYSIC- 
AL STRENGTH AND HOW TO CURE GENERAL 
DEBILITY. 

The' Amount of Force generated in the System. — Whence 
Produced. — The Abnormal State called General Debility. 

— What is Strength? — Case cited to show its Mental 
Origin. — The Mental Faculties that influence the Will- 
Force. — Their Importance. — The Cerebral Organ of 
Muscular Motion. — The Relation of respiration to Mus- 
cular Force. — What is Swooning ? — The Force of the Bod- 
ily Movement proportioned to the Mental Energy — The 



CONTENTS. XV11 

Effect of Respiration upon the Vital Processes. — Nervous- 
ness a Mental State. — Its cure. — Relaxation of the Ab- 
dominal Muscles. — Misplacement of the Internal Organs. 

— Depressing Mental States the Cause. — How to get rid 
of the Supporter and Body Brace. — Relation of the Mind 
to Diseases of Diminished Vitality. — Dr. Combe. . 309 

CHAPTEE XXV. 

SLEEP AS A MENTAL STATE, ITS HYGIENIC 
VALUE, AND HOW TO INDUCE IT. 
Sleep Denned. — Its Influence upon the involuntary Physio- 
logical Processes. — Nutrition. — Circulation. — The Ex- 
creting Organs. — Its Remedial Value. — The Obstacles 
to it. — Cold Feet. — Tea and Coffee. — The Law that 
Governs in inducing it upon Ourselves. — Position of the 
Eye. — Its Effect upon the Cerebrum. — The Respiration 
in Sleep. — In the Magnetic Trance. — The moral Influ- 
ence of Sleep. — The Order in which the Senses lose their 
Susceptibility to Impression. — Practical Directions based 
upon this Law 325 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE WILL-CURE, ACTIVE AND PASSIVE. 
Connection of the Organs with the Mind. — How to affect 
their Functional Action. — The Will-Force and the Stom- 
ach and Intestinal Canal. — Cause of Coldness and Weak- 
ness. — The Cure. — The Passive Will-Cure. — A General 
Law of Health Stated. — Voluntary Movements Fatiguing. 

— The Involuntary Actions not so. — How to take up thy 
bed and walk. — How to walk a hundred miles a day. — 
The Interior State. — Its healthful Influences. — Passive 
Knowledge. — Influx of better Emotional States. — The 
Spirit with which to approach the Inner World. — Im- 
portance of our Relations to it 335 



XV111 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD 
UPON MENTAL HEALTH AND DISEASE. 

A Self-Evident Truth.— The Law of Sympathy. — How 
Jesus bore Men's Sicknesses. — Obsession. — Its Influence 
in causing Disease. — How cured. — Experiences of 
Swedenborg. — What is a Demon ? — Psychological Laws 
stated. — Scriptural Statements respecting destroying 
Angels. — They could save Life as well. — The Medium 
through which Mind acts upon Matter. — Ponderable 
Bodies moved by Spiritual Forces. — The Release of Peter. 
— Paul and Silas. — The Rolling away of the Stone at the 
Entrance of the Sepulcher. — The Availability of such 
unseen Forces. — Their Useful Employment. — The Plates 
of Copper and Zinc. — Positive and Negative Mental 
Forces. — Angelic Influence in the Cure of disordered 
Spiritual States. — The Nature of Goodness. — The Angelic 
Ministry. — Vital Connection with the* other World. — 
Nearness of the unseen Realm. — Longfellow. . . 347 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 

CHAPTER I. 

THE RELATION OF THE HUMAN MIND TO GOD. 

Importance of a Knowledge of God. — The Central Life. — 
Ubiquity of it. — The whole Idea of God included in Love 
and Wisdom. — He is the Primal Cause. — The Divine 
Unity. — Tri-personality impossible. — Man a Divine In- 
carnation. — God in Christ. — Humanization of Deity. — 
All men Sons of God. — Teaching of the Oriental Philoso- 
phy. — Evolution of the Divine Element. — Jesus introduced 
a Higher Type of Humanity. — The Alhiess of God. — His 
Personality and what is meant by it. — His Omnipresence. 
— Where to find Him. — Madam Guy on. — The two As- 
pects of Human Nature. — Medical Science Superficial. — 
The Boot of our Maladies. 

ALL TRUE philosophy must begin and end in 
God, the fountain of all life, aud love and truth. 
A correct knowledge of the soul involves of necessity 
a true conception of the Divine Being. To sunder 
the human mind from him, and then study its phenom- 
ena, is to discern only effects, without rising to the 



20 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

higher and more satisfying knowledge of things in 
their prime causes. The latter alone constitutes truo 
science and real philosophy. God is the Fijst and 
the Last, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and 
the Ending of all finite things. In him is life. He 
alone has life in himself unoriginated and self-derived. 
All else lives from him and in him. Every thing, from 
the insect to the angel exists by virtue of a life pro- 
ceeding from him. We live because he lives, our life 
being the stream, of which he is the fountain, or it is 
a ray of which he is the central sun. This central 
life is every where and in all. It is diffused through 
all space and all worlds. It is the inmost essence of 
all created things. But God's life is love. All that 
we can think of him is included in the terms Love and 
Wisdom. This bounds and terminates our conception 
of Deity. All other attributes, properties, qualities, 
and powers of the Divine Mind must be referred to 
one or the other of these, and are only modifications 
or manifestations of these universal principles. His 
love is the esse of his being, as the schoolmen would 
have called it, or that which lives in and by itself. 
His Wisdom is the existere thence derived, the term 
being used in philosophy to denote manifested or 
derived being. The divine intellect goes forth from 
the divine love, as light from fire. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 21 

This conception of God is a first principle in phi- 
losophy, of which we must never lose sight. It is a 
fundamental verity, without which we can neither 
know ourselves nor him. It is a self-evident truth, that 
nothing finite can exist from itself, but from something 
prior to itself, and this from something primal, which 
brings us as far as our limited powers of thought can 
carry us — to the causa causarum, the great first cause, 
whom we call God. 

But this divine being is One. This grand truth was 
long ago announced in the deserts of Arabia, by the 
Jewish legislator, and proclaimed anew by Jesus of 
Nazareth. " Hear, Israel : the Lord our God is one 
Lord." (Deut. vi. 4; Mark xii. 29.) Three self-existent 
individualities cannot be conceived. Such a proposi- 
tion, as Herbert Spencer would say, is unthinkable. 
Two of them must derive their existence from the 
first, and that which has not being in itself is not 
God. It does not answer. our conception of Deity. 

Man is a finite image of God, or in other words, he 
is a created form recipient of the one only Life. He 
is a manifestation and in a mitigated sense, an incar- 
nation of the Divinity. This constitutes the true 
dignity of humanity. The inmost essence of every 
human soul is divine, using the word to express that 
which goes forth from God. Deeply hidden beneath 



22 



THE MENTAL-CUKE. 



all our external and sensuous coverings, and all our 
moral and intellectual disorders, is the inextinguish- 
able divine spark, sometimes concealed, like a gem in 
the ocean abyss. 

God was in Christ. In him God was manifested in 
the flesh, as never before in the history of the race. 
The Father was in him and he was in the Father. 
This vivid consciousness of the indwelling divine 
principle, was the marked characteristic of the man 
Jesus. In him God became man, and the humanity 
divine. He seemed to himself and has so seemed to 
others, as the God-Man and the Man-God. In his 
personality there was a humanization of the Divine, 
and a deification of the human. But the Deity was 
thus manifested in Jesus, in order that through him 
he might be incarnated in all humanity, so that every 
man might walk forth consciously to himself as a son 
of God and say, "I and my Father are one." Then 
every human nature will be viewed as affiliated with 
Divinity. Then will be realized the full import of 
the words of Jesus : " He came unto his own, and his 
own received him not. But as many as received him, 
to them gave he power to become the sons of 
God." (John i. 11, 12.) Then will be fulfilled 
the dream of the Oriental Philosophy, which has 
haunted the Eastern mind from the remotest ages. 



TILE MENTAL-CURE. 



23 



" The idea of God's becoming man," says Dr. Turn- 
bull, " and man becoming God, is the mystic circle in 
which all their thoughts revolve. Nothing is more 
familiar to their minds than the possibility of divine 
incarnations, and the consequent possibility of human 
transformations. Somehow, God and man, the infinite 
and finite, must become one." 

To evolve and to bring forth to freedom this hidden 
divine element in human nature is the true aim of all 
philosophy, and should be of theology. This will add 
no new property to the soul, but only bring out to our 
consciousness what lies concealed within. The an- 
tagonism between the inmost divine essence in man, 
and the selfhood, or the blinded and disorderly activity 
of the mind, either acquired or hereditary, is the secret 
spring of all our mental and physical unhappiness. 
When the inner divine life pervades, appropriates, and 
controls, the more external degrees of our nature, man 
then returns to God, as did the humanity of Jesus. 
This is the hour of our glorification. This is the end 
of our creation, the appointed destiny of every created 
soul. After the lapse of ages of darkness, the son of 
Mary appeared in Palestine as the type and model of 
a new and higher development of humanity. What 
human nature was in him. it is the design of the 
infinite Love it should be in all, if not fully, at least 
in a degree. 



24 'HIE MENTAL-CURE. 

God is all and in all, but all things arc not God. 
All things, singular and together, are finite or lim- 
ited, and the finite cannot be the infinite, for this, to 
our intuitive and rational thought, is contradictory 
and impossible. 

But is God personal, or an indefinitely diffused 
principle ? In a certain sense, he is both one and 
the other. He is love and wisdom. These are the 
essential properties of personality. They are essen- 
tially human. An impersonal affection or intelli- 
gence is an impossible conception. lie is an infinite 
Man, and we are men by virtue of our derivation and 
conception from him. But his divine life goes forth 
everywhere. Tli9 sphere of his love and wisdom ex- 
tends beyond the bounds of creation. The universe 
of mind and matter is but its ultimation or visible 
manifestation. The Divine Being is in all things, 
the least and the greatest, but in the human soul in 
the highest degree. Here we may seek and find him, 
as Madam Guyon and the mystics of all ages have 
averred. She declares the source of the disquietude, 
the unrest of religious people to be, that they seek 
him where he is not to be found. "Accustom your- 
self to seek God in your heart, and you will find him," 
was her advice to the Franciscan monk, who com- 
plained that he could not attain a satisfactory con- 



THE MENTAL-CUKE. 25 

sciousness of God. This pregnant utterance was only 
a ray of the inner light and life. May it come to every 
man who reads it, with the force of a new revelation. 
We can study human nature under two aspects or 
points of view. 1. As it was designed to be, and 
such as it is when it exists and acts according to the 
divine order of its creation, and stands forth an im- 
age and likeness of the Divinity. Such a study, alas, 
could only create an ideal model, like Plato's perfect 
man. Or we should be obliged to confine our inves- 
tigations to the character and state of Jesus of Naz- 
areth, of whom men, in all ages, have said in adoring 
wonder, " Behold the man." 2. We may view it as 
we unfortunately find it generally, in a state of moral, 
intellectual, and physical disorder. This is one of the 
most prominent facts of consciousness. The geolo- 
gist, as he surveys the wreck of former generations of 
animals, studies them as they are, in order to find 
what they were. By the science of Comparative 
Anatomy, and under the light of his intuitions, he is 
able to restore the imperfect and decayed animal 
frame- work, and show us what it was when it moved, 
a thing of life, in an age of the globe long since 
passed, and which presents only broken relics of its 
living inhabitants. It belongs to a true mental phi- 
losophy to discover the source of our unhappiness, 



26 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

and to point out the way in which we may rise from 
our inharmony of mind and body to that divine and 
celestial order, into which the Divine Love longs to 
introduce us. All medical science that does not pen- 
etrate with its light to the root of our physical mala- 
dies and sufferings, but applies its remedies only to 
visible effects, and to the removal of temporary symp- 
toms, is superficial and unphilosophical, and "heals 
the hurt of the daughter of my people but slightly. " 
True science is a knowledge of things in their causes, 
and an intelligent system of medication aims to re- 
move the source of our suffering. This done, the 
effect ceases of its own accord. This will be the hon- 
est aim of this necessarily imperfect treatise on Men- 
tal Hygiene. " Philosophy is a futile, frivolous pur- 
suit, unworthy of greater respect than a game of 
chess, unless it subserve some grand practical aim — 
unless its issue be in some enlarged conception of 
man's life and destiny." 

As our prescriptions will be more of a spiritual 
character, than is common in medical science, it will 
be needful to enter into some discussion of the general 
nature of our inner being, whose varying states are 
the body's health or malady. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 27 



CHAPTER II. 

THE MIND IMMATERIAL, BUT SUBSTANTIAL. 

What is meant by Immaterial Substance. — What by matter. 
— Ihe Properties of Matter are reducible to the Idea of 
Force. — Mind the Exhibition of a higher Force. — All 
Force is Spiritual. — It Originates in God. — Love and 
Wisdom the First Substance and Force. — Immortality. — 
The Ground of it. — Life a Persistent Force. — Its recep- 
tive Forms Evanescent. — The Brotherhood of Man. — 
Universal Fatherhood of God. — Moral Influence of such 
an Idea. 

THERE ARE two distinct substances in the uni- 
verse. One we call mind or spirit, the other 
matter. It is difficult for some to conceive of a sub- 
stance without attaching to it some material proper- 
ties, for, to most persons, in consequence. of the senses 
having a controlling influence over their conceptions, 
that which is not material is as nothing. Their 
thoughts seldom rise above the range of the external 
or sensuous degree of the mind's action. All spirit- 
ual realities are in their thoughts materialized. The 



28 THE MENTAL-CURB. 

common idea of spirit is that of refined, etherialized 
matter, — a matter so subtle as to be imponderable, 
and almost without reality. But we must learn to 
think of spirit and matter as discrete or distinct sub- 
stances, that is, as real being, but having no proper- 
ties in common. When we assert that mind is im- 
material, we do not weaken the conception of the 
reality of its being, but we simply mean that its 
essence is invested with properties entirely unlike 
those by which matter is manifested to our senses. 
Yet it is the most vitally real thing in the universe. 
Matter is known to us by a certain combination of 
properties, cognizable to our senses ; mind by other 
and distinct properties or powers, known only to our 
consciousness or inner perceptions. Yet our knowl- 
edge of the latter is as certain as that of the other. 

Persons are apt to think of matter as something 
solid and tangible to the senses, but of spiritual sub- 
stance as an etherialized, volatile essence, destitute 
of these qualities, and consequently of reality. But 
what we call solidity is only force. It is simply 
resistance, and is more a sensation in us than a prop- 
erty of matter. Taking this view of it, spirit may 
be as solid a reality as anything in nature. Anything 
that causes in us the proper sensation of resistance is 
as solid to us as gold, or platinum. For all that we 



THE MENTAL-CUKE. 29 

know, or can know of hardness, firmness, compactness, 
impenetrability, or gravity, is a force occasioning in 
us a particular sensation. The world of spirit is as 
real in itself, and to the sensations of its inhabitants, 
as this outside range of created things. 

All that we know of matter is force, as all its prop- 
erties are only modifications of force. Its inmost 
essence may be spiritual, and what we call matter 
may be only the outward clothing, or ultimation, or 
external manifestation of some spiritual reality. The 
properties of matter are reduced to the single idea of 
force. Mind is a higher and diviner force, approach- 
ing many degrees nearer the Central Life. All force, 
in its origin, as well as all causation, is spiritual. 
Mind is a manifestation of force entirely distinct from 
that we call matter. Between color and thought, 
there is a broad distinction. They are not identical. 
One belongs to matter, the other to mind. One is a 
material, the other a spiritual property or force. 

We have seen that God is the Central Life, the 
first and only life. All life in the universe is a deriva- 
tion from him, and a manifestation or modification 
of this primal vital force. But his life is love. Hence 
his love is the first and only substance, whence all 
other substances emanate. Every thing, from the 
atom to the world, from the animalcule to the angel, 



30 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

has tne root of its being in him. He is Love and 
Wisdom, two divine forces, like positive and negative. 
But love and wisdom, or affection and intellect, are 
the essential properties of personality. The divine 
love is not a mere idea, or an emotion, but a substance 
from which, by creative influx, has gone forth all 
other being. If we can accustom ourselves to think 
of Love and Wisdom in God, and will and understand- 
ing in man, as substance, an important point will be 
gained. But we must carefully subtract from our 
conception of that substance all the properties or forces 
of matter, such as divisibility, impenetrability, and 
weight. The essential conditions of all material 
existence are time and space. All matter exists in 
time and fills space. Mind or spirit is not in time, 
and is not limited by space. To raise the thoughts 
above time and space is to think spiritually. Until 
we can do this, all our ideas of God, of the human 
soul, and of spiritual and heavenly things, will be 
material, earthly, and sensual. 

Whether the soul of man be destined to endless 
existence, is a question that is not affected by its ma- 
teriality or immateriality. The ancient philosophers, 
as Plato, and after him, Cicero, endeavored to main- 
tain the doctrine, that mind in its own nature was 
indissoluble and indestructible. But this is not true 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 



31 



of any finite thing in the universe. Nothing has life 
in itself, hut all live from God. He alone has immor- 
tality or life in himself, eternally springing from the 
depth of his own heing. Immortality depends upon 
the will of God. The immutability of that will is the 
ground of its certainty. It is true now and always 
will be so, that because he lives, we live also. We 
live by virtue of our being finite receptacles of the 
one and only Life. 

But why is not animal life, which must be referred 
to the same primal source, also immortal? We do 
not hesitate to affirm, that no life will ever be anni- 
hilated. It is the conclusion of the improved science 
of the day, that all force is perpetual and indestruct- 
ible. What we call life is a force, a vital force. The 
quantum of life in the universe will never be dimin- 
ished, but the forms receptive of it may change. 
Man is the recipient of the divine life in the highest 
degree. The human soul exists in three degrees, 
whereas animals possess only the lower or external 
degree. The life of animals is indestructible, but 
their individuality is not equally stable. The* latter 
may cease, while the former goes forth to animate 
other forms. The vital force is persistent, but the 
external shell that contains it, is evanescent. There 
is no real death anywhere. The boundless universe 



32 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

is life. But man retains his individual and personal 
existence. His inner life is not only a persistent and 
imperishable force, springing perpetually from out 
the depths of the divine existence, but his affectional 
and intellectual nature ultimate themselves in an out- 
ward form that constitutes his everlasting identity or 
individuality. 

If it be true, that all men live from the one and only 
Life, and that the father does not create new life in 
his offspring (for he has no life in himself), but that 
life is imparted to the receptive germ in the womb 
from the Lord alone, then, as Des Guys has truly 
shown, all men are brethren, children of a common 
Father. It matters not whether there was only one 
created pair, from whom the race has sprung, or a 
thousand, the brotherhood of men, and the fatherhood 
of God are established on an unshaken basis. 

And moreover, all men, of every clime and color, 
are sons of God and incarnations of the Divinity. 
All conception is an operation of the central living 
Force, whether in the womb of Mary or any of the 
millions of the daughters of Eve. In all men the 
Divinity becomes finitely human. The consciousness 
of this grand verity would be a living moral force to 
elevate the debased populations of the globe. Self- 
respect is one of the safeguards of virtue. To think 



THE MEXTAL-CURE. 33 

meanly of human nature has a depressing moral influ- 
ence. To entertain noble thoughts of the real dignity 
of man, ourselves and others, becomes an interior 
conatus or endeavor to act worthily of our divine ori 
gin, and "to do the works of God." 



34 THE MENTAL-CURE. 



CHAPTER III. 

ON THE FORM OF THE MIND. 

Mind not a mathematical Point or a Monad. — TJic Relation 
of Substance and Form. — Perfection of Form belongs only 
to the Realm of Spirit. — The Soul the inner Manhood. — 
Humanity of Angels. — Disembodied Souls in the Human 
Form. — Proved by its being a necessity of thought. — Form- 
lessness and Nonentity equivalent. — The Spirit an Organ- 
ization. — Omnipresence of it in the Body. — Platonic Idea 
of it. — Pythagorean Conception of it. 

IT HAS been one of the vagaries and fantasies of 
the philosophy of Mind, that it has sometimes 
taught that our interior being which we call the soul 
or spirit, was without form. The mind has been 
taken to be a formless, unsubstantial something of 
which no definite idea could be conceived. It has 
been reduced in the conceptions of certain metaphy- 
sicians to something like a mathematical point, which 
is defined to be position without magnitude. Such a 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 35 

thing, if it be not absolutely nothing, is next to non- 
entity. It is at least on the dividing line between 
entity and nihility. 

Wg have seen that mind is a real and positive sub- 
stance. That which is not substance is nothing. For 
in order to be a something or a somewhat, it must be 
a substance or essence. And it is self-evident that a 
substance cannot exist without a form, nor can a 
form be conceived without substance. By the con- 
stitution of our minds, and the necessary laws of 
thought, we are compelled to connect the ideas of 
substance and form. By form we mean the external 
manifestation of a substance, or it is the boundary of 
an essence. It does not belong merely to matter. 
Material things have shape, but perfect form does not 
exist in the realm of matter. The geometrical figure 
we call a circle is not found except in the world of 
mind. There is not a straight line, nor a perfect 
square, nor a cone, nor a cube, in the material uni- 
verse. These exist only in the world of spirit. We 
may find in nature rude approaches to these mathe- 
matical forms, but under a powerful combination of 
lenses they are found not to answer the definition of 
those geometrical figures. They are purely mental 
creations, and can never be realized in the outer 
world. 



36 TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 

The shape of the body is a resemblance, or an ex- 
ternal manifestation of the spiritual form, the inner 
man. Matter has no definite form or shape of its 
own. The shape it assumes is always an effect, the 
result of the action of some spiritual cause. In the 
case of the body, its form is an effect of which the 
soul is the cause. 

That the soul or mind of man is in the human form, 
we might prove from several considerations. The 
divine Being is an infinite Man. This is an intuitive 
truth, for it is the idea that all men instinctively form 
of him. Love and "Wisdom are the necessary ele- 
ments of personality. But a formless personality is 
impossible to thought. As our bodies receive their 
shape from the indwelling soul, so this receives its 
form from the Divinity within. Because God is the 
Divine Man, and all things have gone forth from him, 
they exhibit a conatus to assume the human shape. 
The higher they rise in the scale of life the more 
manifest this tendency becomes. 

We might show that angels are in the human form, 
and that they are only the spirits of men, who have 
graduated to the inner world, and passed into the 
heavens. This is the unmistakable teaching of the 
Scriptures, and also commends itself to our intuitive 
reason. But we will not insist upon this. 



THE MENTAL -CURE. 37 

That, the spirit, which may be properly called the 
interior man, as has been done by Plato and Paul 
(Rom. vii. 22; 2 Cor. iv. 16- Eph.iii. 16), is in the 
human form, is an intuitive truth, and a necessity of 
thought. Our minds are so constructed by the Creator, 
that we cannot think otherwise of our departed friends 
than as existing still in the human form on the plains 
of immortality. This enters necessarily into our con- 
ception of them. That such is the truth, is a perpet- 
ual revelation from God, as it is not supposable that 
he would so constitute our minds that they must of ne- 
cessity conceive a falsity. We always view our friends 
after death, or their emancipation from the material 
body, as persons, and the human form enters into our 
idea of personality. Subtract from the conception of 
them this element of form, and it is equivalent to 
their annihilation. If the soul is not in the human 
form, after the dissolution of its mortal covering, if it 
exist at all, it is dissipated into an indefinable and 
formless principle, which cannot be an object of 
thought. For of that which has no form, it is not 
possible for the mind to gain any idea. That the 
spirit is the inward man, as Paul and Swedenborg 
denominate it, is a truth constituting the foundation 
on which alone rests an intelligent belief of its immor- 
tality. Remove this, and faith in our personal exist- 
ence hereafter falls to the ground. 



38 



TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 



The mind being the interior man, is not confined to 
the brain, nor, as Descarte supposed, included in the 
Pineal gland. But it pervades and is interfused 
through the whole body. This is a truth of vital impor- 
tance in the system of Mental Hygiene. The body- 
is not merely an external robe, the outward shell of 
the living soul, but the mind interpenetrates every 
atom of it. This was a Platonic form of speech, and 
many, following in the wake of the Grecian philoso- 
pher, have represented the body as the vestment of 
the soul. But it does not express the true analogy, 
for the spirit is coextensive with the physical organ- 
ism. It thrills in every nerve, and pervades every 
fibre. The same objection lies against the Pythago- 
rean form of speaking of the body as the tent or habit- 
ation of the soul. A man does not fill the house he 
lives in, but the spiritual principle pervades the whole 
outward organism. The latter is but the echo of the 
former. It corresponds or answers to it in every part. 
This idea we 6hall unfold more fully hereafter. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 39 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE DIVISION OF THE MIND INTO TWO DEPART-. 

MENTS. 

The two primary Faculties. — The Love. — The Intellect.-^. 
All Love and Truth Divine. — Why they appear our own. 
— The .Divine Nucleus of our Being. — Twofold Division 
of the Mind. — Tlie Will and Love identical. — Motive Power 
and the Love. — The self -determining Power. — The only 
Life. — What is it to will a thing? — Practical value of the 
Doctrine. 

MAN IS endowed with two primary faculties, or 
powers of reception, called the Will and Un- 
derstanding, or the love and the intellect. These 
together constitute what we call the mind. All the 
mental operations and phenomena may he classed 
under the one or the other of these two general di- 
visions. They contain the whole interior life. Either 
one of these faculties may predominate in its action, 
but they cannot be separated, though in thought they 
may be viewed as distinct. The will, which includes 



40 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

our whole affectional or love-nature, with all the 
desires and emotions, is our inmost being, and the 
understanding or intellect is that through which the 
love manifests itself and acts. 

We have seen that the whole divine nature is 
included in Love and Wisdom. The will of man is 
the created and finite receptacle of the divine Love, 
and the understanding, of the divine Wisdom and 
the ideas of the uncreated Mind. All love, in its ori- 
gin, is from this supreme fountain, for, as John avers, 
" Love is of God." In its purity, and unperverted, 
it is the divinest and most vital thing in the universe. 
All the truth that is contained in our intellectual 
nature, or that our powers can grasp, is a ray from 
the abyss of light, the infinite circle in which the 
thoughts of God move. Love and truth have no 
other origin and paternity, yet it is according to ap- 
pearance that they are our own, being self-originated. 
Why is this? That all the movements of our love- 
nature, and all the knowledge in our understanding 
should seem our own and self-derived, is owing to the 
nature of the divine Love, which gives birth to every 
good. This love is an infinite and irrepressible 
inclination to make its own good the possession of 
others made capable of receiving it. Hence when 
admitted to the human mind, it carries with it the 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 41 

appearance that it is ours, and that it is eliminated or 
evolved by the action of our spiritual powers. But 
its genesis is divine. It is ours, not in its origin, but 
as a divine gift. But the boundless love of God im- 
parts good to us so freely and fully as to cause its 
seeming to be ours, — the absolute property of our own 
minds. It is a fundamental principle, of which we 
must never lose sight, that all good and truth in the 
universe of created mind are from God alone. We 
cannot become too fully confirmed in this great truth. 
It is the corner-stone on which the whole temple of 
angelic wisdom rests. Our will is a faculty or cre- 
ated organism, made to be admissive of the divine 
life or love, and the intellect to receive the light of 
the infinite wisdom. These flow from within outward, 
as the nucleus of every soul is a germ of the divine 
nature. 

In most systems of mental science, we find a three- 
fold division of the mind, or what is technically called 
Trichotomy, and all the mental operations are classed 
under the three general designations of Intellect, 
Sensibility and Will. But a careful examination and 
thorough analysis of the phenomena of what they 
call the will, discloses the fact that they are only 
some form of the love. What a man loves he inte- 
riorly wills, and what he wills he loves. Volition is 



42 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 



a movement of the affections. If one does what he 
loves not, if he pursues a course of action repugnant 
to some love, it is in obedience to some stronger affec- 
tion. Motive, which is supposed to influence and 
sometimes control our volitions, is always some form 
of love. And an act without a motive, or an impulse 
leading to it, and lying behind it, would be like the 
motion of machinery without any mechanical force. 
It would be a self-originated movement. When we 
wish to influence the mind of another to some action 
or conduct, or to bring that mind to some desired 
determination, we always appeal to some love, and 
there is nothing back of that of which we have or can 
have the least consciousness, which acts in the decis- 
ion. We may act from an interior love contrary to 
an exterior one. The spiritual degree of the mind 
may and ought to control the mere animal instincts. 
But it is always the love that decides. It is impor- 
tant to define the distinction between the love and 
affection. The latter is external to the former, or 
what amounts to the same, it is the love passed out- 
ward into the region of. the emotions or feelings. 
There may be love that influences and controls the 
whole outward activity, that is attended, at least 
sometimes, with no conscious emotion. We may 
from the love of our family and friends labor all day 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 43 

solely for their good, without once feeling any excite- 
ment of the emotions. In this case the love is inte- 
rior, and beyond the perception of the external con- 
sciousness. But to assert that there is some principle 
behind and beyond that love, and further inward, is 
an assumption without evidence. If it exist at all, it 
lies beyond the soul's inmost perceptions, and of which 
we can have no possible proof. The love is the life 
of man, as it is of God. If we act from life, we are 
moved by love. There is no other life in the universe 
of sentient existence. This is the moving force in 
soul and body, the hidden spring that moves life's 
machinery. This is one of the most important and 
far-reaching principles in the spiritual philosophy of 
Swedenborg. The life of an animal is some form of 
affection, with the instincts that arise from it, and 
this controls their whole being and its activities. 
That love is the only life is a fundamental truth, and 
ever to be borne in mind. 

Among some of the older metaphysicians, as well 
as in the Scriptures, where we find many correct prin- 
ciples in the philosophy of mind, the will and the 
love are used as identical. The term thelo, to will, 
always implies an action of the love. It is generally 
used in the sense of to wish, which implies desire, and 
this is only a mode in which love is manifested. 



44 TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 

When it is used in the sense of arlitrium or deter- 
mination, it is only the same love or affectional ten- 
dency toward a thing or particular result, heightened 
into an endeavor (conatus), or an effort of the love to 
ultimate itself in the outward act. 

That the love is the life of man, and that the love 
and the will are identical, we shall find to be of much 
practical value, in Mental Hygiene, or the cure ot 
diseased conditions of the body through the mind. 
It may become the fountain of health, or the hidden 
spring of deranged physiological action. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 45 



CHAPTER Y. 

THE RELATION OF THE INTELLECT TO THE 
LOVE 

Derivation of the Intellect from the Love. — Importance of this 
Truth in Philosophy. — Swedenbbrg. — G. H. Lewes. — 
Love the Center of our Being. — The Will and Understand- 
ing are like Substance and Form. — Relation of Thought 
to Affection. — Reaction of the Intellect upon the Love. — 
Correlative Spiritual Forces. — Freedom is Harmony. — 
Spiritual Health and Disease. — Relation of our Mental 
and Physical States. — Importance of regulating the Loves. 
Solifidianism based on a wrong Conception of our Mental 
Nature. 

WE KNOW of no principle in the philosophy of 
mind, attended with more far-reaching conse- 
quences than that the intellect is derived from the will 
or love, as taught originally by Swedenborg, but now 
adopted by some of the leading thinkers of the age. 
One has remarked : " That the intellectual aspect is 
not the noblest aspect of man, is a heresy which I 
have long iterated with a constancy due to a convic- 
tion. There never will be a philosophy capable of 



46 TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 

satisfying the demands of humanity, until the truth 
be recognized that man is moved by his emotions, not 
by his ideas : using his intellect only as an eye to sec 
the way. In other words, the intellect is the servant, 
not the lord of the heart." ( Comte's Philosophy of 
the Sciences, by G. H. Lewes, p. 5.) 

As in the divine Being, Wisdom is evolved from 
love, as light from heat, so in man, made after a 
divine type, the understanding is derived from the 
will, truth from goodness, thought from affection, 
faith from charity. It must be acknowledged that 
this is contrary to the first appearance arising from a 
casual glance at the subject. The reason why it ap- 
pears that thought is not generated by affection is, 
that the former comes more distinctly under the ob- 
servation of consciousness than the latter. The love 
is nearer the center of our being, and is hence more 
concealed from our perception. Yet it is easy to con- 
ceive, that if our love-nature were annihilated or sup- 
pressed, all life, all thought, all consciousness would 
perish with it. The will and the understanding sus- 
tain the relation of substance and form. Our thoughts 
are the boundary of our affections, and give them 
coloring or quality. It is also a matter of conscious- 
ness, that our thoughts are always busy with the ob- 
jects of our affections. That which we love is spon- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 4< 

taneously and perpetually recurring to our thoughts. 
What we love the most, fills the largest place in our 
thoughts. If love is not the ruling element of our 
life, why is this so ? Our system of truth or faith 
will always exhibit a tendency to adjust itself in 
harmony with the nature of our ruling love. If we 
are confirmed in the love of what is evil or what 
is morally disorderly, the truth we receive is thereby 
changed to falsity. 

We do not deny that the intellect may have a cer- 
tain reflex influence upon the love. They may be the 
correlative forces of our spiritual organism, like ac- 
tion and reaction, or heat and light, or like the posi- 
tive and negative principles in magnetism. One can- 
not exist without the other. They should mutually 
balance each other. This is a state of spiritual har- 
mony and freedom. For freedom and harmony are 
the same, being the perfect equilibrium of the two 
forces of will and understanding, or sensibility and 
intellect. 

This is also a state of spiritual health. The funda- 
mental idea of mental disease, is a loss of balance be- 
tween the intellectual and affectional departments of 
the mind. Such is its origin and nature. Some false 
idea is pushed to undue prominence, or some feeling 
-becomes inordinate and predominant. To restore the 



48 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

balance, the lost harmonious equilibrium, is to effect 
the cure of the soul. To restore the lost harmony, 
should be the steady aim of him who ministers to a 
mind diseased. To maintain it in ourselves, should 
be our constant study. 

Such is the mysterious relation of the soul and 
body, that every mental condition records itself in the 
bodily organism, — first in the brain, and then in the 
organs that have sympathetic connection with those 
parts of the cerebral system. The healthy and happy 
equipoise in the mental powers, can be effected by 
magnetizing away the false notion, or the disorderly 
feeling, by a judicious and intelligent treatment of 
the part of the brain where it is recorded. 

If love is the inmost essence of our being, and the 
fountain in us of all vitality and activity, if it be 
" a well of water in us, springing up into everlasting 
life," then to regulate our loves is the great object, 
the grand result, we should study to achieve. It also 
follows from tbis doctrine that every man's interior 
character is shaped by his prevailing affectional states, 
for the ruling love is the impelling force in the mental 
economy. It makes the laws for the intellectual pow- 
ers to execute. A genuine faith, instead of producing 
love or charity, is genera-ted by it. This view of the 
mind and its invisible subtle forces, overturns from 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 4'9 

its foundations the great error of the religious world 
in all ages, that salvation is by faith alone. A man 
is saved, not by the belief of a tenet, but by a pre- 
dominant holy love. His restoration from a state of 
moral, intellectual, and bodily disorder, commences 
not so much in the credence given to a dogma, as in 
the first dawning of a proper state of the affections. 
And when this condition becomes confirmed by the 
law of habit, a soul is saved either in the church or 
out of it. No faith can save us if it has not its vital 
root in love. The doctrine of this chapter is not an 
idle speculation, without practical value, but there is 
inclosed in it the principle that shall issue in the 
highest well-being of the race here and hereafter 
In this world even, our ruling love is our life, and 
a knowledge of it is the key that may open to oui 
perception, our whole interior character, and to a 
great extent, our physical condition. 



50 THE MENTAL-CURE. 



CHAPTER VI. 
THE DOCTRINE OF DEGREES. 

Three distinct Planes of Mental Being. — Difference between 
this and the Common Trichotomous Division of the Mind. 
— Each Degree a distinct Mental Nature. — Tlxe Outermost 
Mange. — The Senses. — Animality . — TJie Psychical man. 

— The Spiritual. — Consciousness. — Second Degree. — The 
Rational Mind. — Emancipation of the Intellect from tin 
Dominion of the Senses. — Somnambulism. — Clairvoyance. 

— Cognition of Spiritual Tilings. — Progress an Evolution. 

— Education an educing of what is within. — The Phenom- 
ena of the inmost Degree. — Perception or Intuition. — All 
truth self-evident to it. — TJie Divine Internal. — The Con- 
junction of the Divine and Human. 

IN THIS chapter we approach an important and 
interesting subject. The doctrine of the three 
distinct degrees or planes of mental being is charac- 
teristic of the philosophy of Svveclenborg, who haa 
thrown more light upon the subject of our inner self, 
than any other writer. The doctrine of degiees, in 
the form in which he presents it, is entirely new, not 
being found, nor any thing but a distant approach to 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 51 

it, in any of the older philosophers. It is true, we 
often meet with a three-fold arrangement or classifi- 
cation of the mental powers, as into intellect, sensi- 
bility, and will. But this is a widely different concep- 
tion from the doctrine of degrees, as unfolded in the 
writings of the Swedish seer, and northern Apocalyp- 
tist. In the prevailing systems of mental science, the 
intellect is not viewed as a complete mind, having 
all the powers and faculties of mind, but is simply 
intellect, no more nor less. The same may be said of 
the sensibility. It is not conceived to be a complete 
mental'organism. It is only one branch or depart- 
ment of the inner nature. And so of the will. But 
in the spiritual science of Swedenborg, each degree 
of the mind is complete in itself, rounded out to the 
full proportions of an interior manhood, with nothing 
wanting to complete the fullness of a distinct men- 
tal existence. It has will and understanding, affec- 
tion and thought, memory, reason, and imagination. 
Each lies within the other, like concentric circles, 
and the more external is evolved from the internal. 

The lowest or outermost degree is called the exter- 
nal or natural man, or what amounts to the same, the 
external or natural mind, as we make no reference 
to the material body. This is the degree of mind we 
have in common with animals, and might with pro- 



h'l THE MENTAL-CUKE. 

priety be denominated the animal mind, though it i? 
found in man more complete than in the lower orders. 

So far as any one lives only on this plane of men- 
tal life, he is only a higher animal, having the same 
desires, affections, and appetites, as control the lower 
orders. To this degree belong the senses. This 
external mind is well defined to consciousness. Its 
phenomena come distinctly under the cognizance.oi 
the higher or interior range of the soul's action. Each 
interior degree is endowed with a power of perceiving 
what transpires in the next outer circle of existence. 
The animal desires and appetites, and the external 
thoughts stand out with prominence, and are as dis- 
tinctly seen by some power lying further inward, 
as the material objects around us are by the senses. 
What we call consciousness is but the observation 
the inward degrees of mind take of what transpires 
in the plane external to them. 

But is this a distinct and complete degree of the 
mind, or, in other words, is it a mind by itself ? A little 
reflection will convince us that it is so. There are 
those in the world ( and they are not an exceptional 
few), in whom no other range of mental life has been 
unfolded. The spiritual mind is still in its chrysalis 
state. They are sensual and corporeal, mere fleshly 
men. All their thoughts and desires and enjoyments 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 53 

are material and sensuous. They believe in nothing 
that is not apprehended by the senses. The world 
of infinite reality lying further inward, is to them a 
terra incognita, an unknown land. The spiritual, the 
supersensuous, is beyound their mental grasp, and to 
them unreal and intangible. They are described by 
Paul in the following passage : " The natural man re- 
ceiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : for they 
are foolishness unto him : neither can he know them, 
oecause they are spiritually discerned !" (1 Cor. ii. 14.) 
This degree of the mind is called in the New Testa- 
ment psychology, the flesh. The Greek philosophers, 
as Plato, denominated it psyche, and those who were 
in that degree only, were called psychical men, in 
opposition to the pneumati/coi or spiritual men, those 
in whom the next higher range of mental existence 
had come to be developed. When one lives only on 
this lower plane, the other degrees are closed, or are 
in a state of quiescence. They are like the unborn 
fetus. These embryonic powers await a birth to a 
higher and diviner life. 

The second or interior degree may be characterized 
as the rational mind or man. But it does not consist 
of reason alone, for on the first plane of the mind 
reason is developed more or less. Even animals ex- 
hibit something akin to it. The knowledge of the 



54 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

external mind is sensuous, that of the interior rises 
above the range of the senses, and is a spiritual intel- 
ligence. The intellect becomes emancipated from 
the bondage of sense, and soars above the limitations 
of time and space. This degree of the mind comes 
into activity in the somnambulic or clairvoyant state. 
New powers of sense, that act independently of the 
bodily organs, are opened. There is vision far-reach- 
ing, and penetrating, when the outward eye is closed. 
There is hearing, when the natural ear receives no 
impression. The sounds of the inner world are borne 
by a more refined medium than the atmosphere we 
breathe, and affect the inward auditory sense. The 
eye is illumined with a purer light than emanates 
from the sun. Spiritual realities to this degree of the 
mind, become as objectively real as the outward 
scenes of beauty and grandeur are to our ordinary 
vision. This spiritual mind is at home in the higher 
clime, the land of perpetual spring. Sometimes these 
spiritual senses and powers are developed normally 
and by a gradual unfolding, and a man exhibits the 
phenomena of a double consciousness and existence. 
He becomes an inhabitant of two worlds at the same 
rime, and is as much at home in one as the other. 
Supersensuous things are not creations of fancy to 
aim, but vitally real. In such a state was Swedcnborg 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 55 

for twenty-six years of his life. The solid realities 
of another and higher sphere of life were as familiar 
to him as the landscapes of his native land. The ex- 
ternal mind, through the sense of vision, sees things 
•in the material universe — the sun, the stars, the clouds 
in the atmosphere, also the trees, fruits and flowers. 
The interior mind, the spiritual man, takes cognizance 
of a diviner creation, and a world that is a blank to 
the outward senses. 

It is to be observed that this degree of the mind is 
complete in itself. There are loves and affections 
that belong to it. In the natural mind there is the 
love of food; in the spiritual mind, the love of truth. 
These are entirely distinct, and perfectly denned to 
the consciousness. 

All genuine progress is an evolution, a bringing 
out of what is within men. There is in every man 
the unfolded germ of all that is good and true. Great 
futurities are hidden in the mysterious depths of our 
inner being. The divine life itself is there. Progress 
is an education of our powers, using the word in its 
radical sense, of the educing, or drawing forth of what 
is within. When the highest or inmost degree of the 
mind has come to conscious activity and freedom 
one attains to angelic perception, Higher and divine 
powers are unfolded. Ail knowledge and truth be- 



56 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

come self-evident, and the slow and tardy process of 
reasoning is exchanged for intuition. The arcane 
powers of nature and hidden properties of things are 
brought distinctly to view. Such a one has risen 
above the control of the selfish animal instincts to a 
state of self-forgetting purity of love. He walks in 
the mild radiance of the celestial light, and has at 
tained to a fellowship of life with the angelic heavens. 
He reads the characters of men hy a sort of spiritual 
ized instinct. All deception is impossihle in his pres 
ence. He gains knowledge, not from books, but 
drinks in the living light of heaven, as a flower im- 
bibes the light of the sun. He is conscious of intel- 
lectual perceptions, and states of feeling, beyond ex- 
pression in any external language. He sees and feels 
unutterable things. He comes to a conscious knowl- 
edge of the Divinity within. " The Father is in him, 
and he is in the Father." He has communication 
with the indwelling divine light and life. He walks 
and talks with God, and receives truth from its sem- 
piternal source. For it is this degree of the mind 
that has fellowship with the Divine. The Light it- 
self is now revealed, and he walks in it. It may be 
difficult to believe there are such men, but human 
history has been able to give the world a fow exam- 
ples, so as to disclose the undeveloped possibilities of 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 57 

our nature. But these have towered so far above the 
sensuous populations, among whom they dwelt, as to 
be misunderstood in the generation in which they 
lived, but attained the honors of divine worship in 
subsequent ages. It is remarked by one, in whom 
these hidden powers were evolved, and who has been 
accepted by some as a u man sent from God," " The- 
internal of man is that principle by virtue of which 
man is man, and by which he is distinguished from 
brute animals. By this internal he lives after death, 
and to eternity ; and by this he is capable of being 
elevated by the Lord among the angels : it is the very 
first form by virtue of which he becomes, and is, a 
man. By this internal, the Lord is united to man." 
(Arcana Celestia 1999.) By it, the Infinite Life, 
comes to finite limitations, and God is manifest in 
the flesh. 

The unfoldment of these interior degrees of spirit- 
ual life and light, it is devoutly hoped, will not be 
infrequent in the New Age, now in the order of 
Providence dawning upon the world. We are in the 
feeble light of a higher day, the opening morn of the 
" good time coming" which kings and prophets waited 
for, but died without the sight. 



58 THE MENTAL-CURE. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SPIRITUAL BODY— ITS NATURE AND USE. 

Tlie Mind the real Selfhood. — Intermediate Essences. — The 
Spiritual Body a Mediating Principle. — The Proof of its 
Existence. — Testimony of Paul. — Of Swedenborg. — Nei- 
ther insisted upon. — Objection answered. — Shown to be 
the Seat of Sensation. — It is the prior seat of all patholog- 
ical states of the external Organism. — Testimony of Clair- 
voyance. — Of Consciousness. — The Mental Phenomena fol- 
lowing Amputations. — Explanation of them. — Proof of 
Immortality from this source.— A succession of Orgi 
Forms in Man. — The Osseous System. — The Muscular. — 
The Venous and Arterial. — The Cerebro- Nervous. — Be- 
ing is real and vital as it becomes Interior. 

WE HAVE seen that the mind or soul is the 
real man, and exists in the human form. The 
external body is not the living self. Its curious and 
wonderful structure and mechanism only render it a 
form in the lower degree of created things receptive 
of an animating principle from a higher range of being. 
It receives its life and moving forces from the indwell- 
ing spirit. But between the mind and the outward 






THE MENTAL-CURE. 59 

organism, there is an intermediate and substantial 
form, called by Swedenborg and Paul the spiritual 
body. Between all discrete creations in the universe, 
there are such intermediates, through which influx 
descends from the higher to the lower, or, what means 
the same, from the interior to the external, and by 
means of which connection is formed and communi- 
cation is effected. So between the interior soul and 
the outward material body, there is such an organism. 
It spans the discrete chasm between mind and matter, 
connects the two links in the chain of our being, con- 
joins the soul and body into a unity, and through it 
they mutually act and react upon each other. It is 
.composed of a substance intermediate between pure 
spirit and matter, a sort of tertium quid, as the school- 
men would call it, a third something, through which 
the spiritual principle enters into the grosser body. 

But have we any evidence of its existence in our 
complex being? Is its existence a mere conjecture, an 
hypothesis, a bold assumption, destitute of any solid 
proof? Is it a thing taken for granted, and incapable 
of demonstration ? I will not dwell upon the intuitive 
reasonableness of recognizing such an intermediate 
substance coming between mind and matter. Nor 
will I insist upon the plain and positive averment 
of Paul that, " there is a natural body, and there is a 



60 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

spiritual body." ( 1 Cor. xv. 44.) Nor need we 
quote Swedenborg to prove it. The demonstration 
does not rest upon the authority of any great name. 
No array of authorities, or long line of unbroken tra- 
ditions, no marshalling of opinions or personal beliefs, 
ought to make us give credence to what is not inher- 
ently rational, and does not come within the grasp of 
our intuitions. Modern science does not deal with 
hypotheses, — that stage of mental growth has passed, 
— but with positive facts. It is with such solid veri- 
ties that its temple is built. 

It has been objected that the anatomist has never 
detected the existence of any such organism. Nei- 
ther has anatomical science, even when aided by mi- 
croscopical investigations, been able to discover the 
mind, with its thoughts and affections. Yet there is 
nothing whose existence is more certain or real. There 
is a good reason for both these failures. Where 
a thing is not it cannot be found. This is self-evi- 
dent. If a man is not in his house, he cannot be dis- 
cerned there, though we search never so long and 
sharply for him. The anatomist studies the dead 
body, the cast off and decaying shell of our being. 
In this there is no spiritual body. Hence none can 
there be found. The living inhabitant has vacated 
his former mansion. 






THE MENTAL-CURE. 61 

But may we not discover it in the living body ? 
Effects reveal the presence and action of adequate 
causes. We affirm that it is the seat of all sensation. 
If we establish this point, the existence of a spiritual 
body is susceptible of positive demonstration. The 
material body is destitute of feeling. That it feels is 
only an appearance which an examination by the light 
of consciousness shows to be not the real fact. Sen- 
sation belongs somewhere to our inner nature. This 
is admitted in all systems of mental science. We oc- 
cupy here undisputed ground. The eye does not see, 
but something sees through the eye. The outward 
ear does not hear, but it is only an organ through 
which something within is affected by the vibratory 
waves. Nor is the sensation of feeling located in the 
substance of the brain and nerves. The brain itself 
is destitute of sensibility, and it has been cut and 
removed as far down as the Corpus Callosum, without 
the least pain. The optic nerve, at its base, has been 
shown to be insensible to light. These are unques- 
tioned truths. But it is equally certain that pure 
mind cannot be affected by the direct contact of mat- 
ter. This is also admitted. Fire will not burn it, 
nor does it feel the thrust of a sword. The two sub- 
stances are discrete. They have unlike properties. 
So far is sensation from belonging to the interior 



62 



THE MENTAL-CUKE. 



mind, that the mind perceives it in something exter- 
nal to itself. Consciousness assures us of this. But 
if sensation, as for instance feeling, is not in the mind, 
and it is admitted that it is not in the outward body, 
where must it he placed ? Moat certainly in an inter- 
mediate nature or substance coming between the two, 
and through which the outward world acts upon our 
inner being, and mind communicates with and affects 
external things. If the anatomist would discover the 
spiritual body, let him apply the dissecting knife to 
his own flesh, and the pain he feels reveals it to his 
consciousness. In this way the scalpel proves the fact 
of its existence. The prick of a needle reveals it. 
Puncture the flesh with a lancet, and where the pain 
is, there it is. For all sensation belongs to this re- 
gion of our complex being. This explains the reason 
why, after a limb is amputated, the patient feels a 
pain in the part as before the operation. The un- 
pleasant sensation only continues where it was, that 
is, in the answering part of the external spiritual or- 
ganism. This is a simple solution of an otherwise 
inexplicable fact. The external body corresponds or 
answers to the interior body. The one is the living 
substance, the other the projected shadow. The parts 
of the outer arc pervaded by the corresponding parts 
of the inward man, from the greatest to the least. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 63 

The outer depends upon the inner for its life, and 
when the former drops off, the interior man lives on. 
In the chemistry of death, the earthly husk remains 
in the retort, while the volatile essence ascends to the 
next higher sphere in perfect human form. 

This inner, form is the prior seat of all diseased disturb- 
ance in the lodij. Any abnormal mental states, that 
immediately affect this inner principle, and impede 
its free circulation through the external organs, so as 
to weaken its correspondence with the parts, and 
loosen its connection with them, is the primary cause 
of disease. When this correspondence ceases, the 
outward body dies. Magnetic manipulations act 
upon this department of our being, and go to the 
root of all diseased action. Hence their efficiency 
as a therapeutic agency. In clairvoyance, somnam- 
bulism, and the trance, there is a temporary and par- 
tial loosening of the connection between the external 
and internal man, and the subject becomes invested, 
to a limited degree, with the powers and perceptions 
of the spirit-life. He anticipates and antedates the 
state of man in the world beyond 

The reality of the existence of an interior organism 
within the outward body, has been brought within the 
range of consciousness in another way. In the case 
of those who have lost a limb in battle, or otherwise, 



64 TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 

there remains as vivid a perception of the part as 
before the mutilation. This is the experience and 
testimony of all who have lost any part of the out- 
ward form, and can be accounted for satisfactorily 
only on the supposition of an inward body that is not 
affected by the destruction of the outward organism. 
Attempts have been made to explain the fact, so 
familiar to all surgeons, but they are vague and in- 
comprehensible. The solution is more mysterious 
than the phenomena to be explained. It is a darken- 
ing of counsel by words without knowledge. If there 
be a spiritual body, or as Kerner calls it, a nerve-pro- 
jected form, which is the subject of all sensation, every 
thing in relation to the above named fact becomes 
plain and simple. We may boldly aver, that we have 
the same evidence of its existence as we have of the 
material body. In both cases the proof rests upon 
the testimony of consciousness, beyond which there 
is no higher evidence, and in which the human mind 
always rests. It is one of the original laws of belief, 
and is deemed final in every argument. If we deny 
its authority, we unsettle the foundation of all evi- 
dence, and we may doubt the existence of anything, 
even of ourselves. 

When any part of the external body is removed by 
disease or accident, there remains the perception of 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 65 

the answering spiritual part, so that after a limb is 
amputated under the influence of ether, or other an- 
aesthetic agent, on awakening, as it were, to life again, 
the absent member is not missed, and the person comes 
slowly to realize that it is gone. But suppose an- 
other limb is removed, and still another. Convey 
them, if you please, to the cemetery. The case re- 
mains the same. They are not missed in the con- 
sciousness. Go a step further, and suppose the whole 
outward form to be removed from the spirit. Disrobe 
the inner man entirely of its fleshly envelope, there 
remains the same consciousness of a body as before. 
The man, the conscious self, still lives. Such is the 
condition of the freed spirit upon its entrance upon 
the life to come. It is conscious of losing nothing 
that constituted any essential element of its being. 
It has parted with no life, for the outward body had 
none of its own. It has been deprived of no one oi 
the senses, for these belong to the inner and not to 
the outer man, and when the former passes to the 
higher realm, it carries with it all that belongs to its 
nature. 

There is in our complex structure a succession of 
bodily forms, each inclosed, as it were, within the 
other. First we have the bony frame-work. Taken 
by itself, it exhibits a rude approach to the human 



66 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

shape. Next comes the motory or muscular system. 
Added to the former, it fills out the outline to a nearer 
approach to completeness. Then interpenetrating 
this rough model or cast of humanity, we have the 
venous and arterial system, with their innumerable 
minute branches. These are so diffused, that to 
puncture the flesh anywhere, even with the point of a 
lancet, we strike one, and the circulating fluid escapes. 
If we could perfectly abstract this system from the 
rest, it would be a comparatively perfect human form. 
But the brain with its continuation into the spinal 
column, and the nerves ramifying from it, is so inter- 
fused through the rest of the system, that by applying 
the point of a needle to any part, we come in contact 
with it. Taken by itself it would be a nearly com- 
plete human form. But pervading this, and diffused 
through it, is the spiritual body, the nerve-projected 
form. With the nerve matter, the outward vision 
terminates its range of action. But before the un- 
veiled eye of independent clairvoyance, the inner man 
is revealed. Then comes the mind with its successive 
degrees of interiority. Within these, in the living 
center of our being, lies concealed the divine germ, a 
spark of the infinite Life. As we progress inward, 
our being becomes more real and vital. The inner, 
all the way through, acts upon and into the outer. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. G7 

The external lives and moves by influx from thai 
which is interior. The mind affects first the spiritual 
body, then the nerves, then the external organism. 
Hence all disease being an outward visible effect, we 
must search for its cause in something further inward. 
It is a corollary, or natural inference from the prin- 
ciples already established, that it has its origin in 
some disordered states of the inner man. For there 
is a pathology of the mind as well as of the external 
body. 



08 TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ON TIIE EMANATIONS OF MIND, OR SPIRITUAL 
SPHERES. 

Material Effluvia. — Odorous Particles. — Evaporation . — 
The mental Sphere a Vibrating Force. — Importance of 
the Doctrine in Mental Science. — The Sphere the outgoing 
of the Love. — Mental States Contagious. — What is In- 
fluence f — What is Divinity t —Sympathy and Antipathy 
explained. — Spiritual Remoteness and Propinquity. — 
Pathological States of Mind and Body, traced to the Sus- 
ceptibility of the Patient. — Subtle Forces of Nature as 
Therapeutic agencies. — Connection of the mental Sphere 
with the bodily Emanations. — The Imposition of hands not 
a mere Symbol. — The Breath. — The source of our mental 
Disturbances. — How to be Useful. 

IT IS a truth recognized by science, that every ma- 
terial body is surrounded by an atmosphere gener- 
ated by a subtle emanation of its own substance. The 
air enveloping the globe we inhabit is charged with 
the minute particles proceeding from the various ob- 
jects of nature. The atmosphere thus becomes the 
general repository of these visible and invisible efflu- 
via. But what is true of the globe at large, may be 



THE MENTAL-CURE. G9 

affirmed of the smallest tiling. There perpetually ex- 
hales from it an effluvium of its own corpuscles and 
atoms, which surround it as the air envelops and 
pervades the earth. These emanations sometimes be- 
come visible and manifest to the senses. The sensa- 
tion of smell is occasioned in us by an emanation of 
the minute particles of the odorous body, which im- 
pinge against the delicate membrane of the nostrils, 
as in the case of the rose. These invisible effluvia are 
often wafted to a great distance. Sailors detect their 
approach to land in this way, before even the moun- 
tains become visible to the eye. The acute sense of 
smell in animals — as the clog and various beasts of prey 
— is affected by them sometimes when they are miles 
away from the object producing them. A familiar 
illustration of emanation is seen in water, which per- 
petually emits vapor into the atmosphere, where, if it 
could all be condensed, there would be enough to 
form an ocean. The human body is surrounded with 
a sphere of the substances that compose it, which go 
forth in the sensible and insensible perspiration. The 
same is true of all animals, vegetables, and minerals. 
This phenomenon, like all the forces and movements 
of the material universe, is an effect of which some- 
thing spiritual is the cause. At least, there is some- 
thing analogous to this in the world of the mind. The 



70 TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 

mind is a spiritual substance or essence, and there 
goes forth from it a sphere that surrounds it. It is a 
radiant force like heat and light. In fact love is 
spiritual heat, and truth is spiritual light. This 
doctrine of spiritual spheres is of great importance in 
mental philosophy, but has been almost wholly ignor- 
ed. In the system of Swedenborg, it has been given 
that prominence that belongs to it. Every angel, 
every spirit, every man, is surrounded by a spiritual 
sphere of affection and thought, or radiant circles of 
an emanating force, within which he imparts — often 
silently and unintentionally — his own feelings and 
ideas. Just as a heated body, for instance a stove, 
imparts its heat to surrounding objects, and a lamp 
its light. 

There are persons who exert a secret but powerful 
influence over those who come in contact with the 
sphere of their inner nature. This influence is good 
or bad, happy or depressing, elevating or degrading, 
according to the confirmed affectional state or ruling 
love of him from whom it proceeds. For it is to be 
borne in mind, that it goes forth primarily from the 
love which constitutes the soul's life. If the mental 
state be joy or melancholy, gladness or sorrow, meek- 
ness or anger, contentment or impatience, faith or 
fear, it affects others with a like feeling, in a degree 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 



71 



proportioned to their impressibility. In this way the 
mind propagates its own prevailing condition, and all 
our mental states are contagious. This law of our 
being operates to bring all into a similitude of spirit- 
ual condition. In the heavenly realm, there is a com- 
munication of all to each, and of each to all, — a univer- 
sal fellowship of thought and affection. The sphere 
of each intermingles with that of the whole in a divine 
community of life and celestial harmony. The encir- 
cling sphere or emanating wave, surrounding every 
created spirit is more or less extended and powerful, 
according as the angel or man is more or less elevated 
in the moral scale or degrees of life. There are those 
whose influence ( from in and fluo, to flow in) extends 
to great distances. And mind acts upon mind, so far 
as we know, independently of spatial nearness or re- 
moteness. The sphere of the Deity is infinite, and is 
the inmost life of all things. We use the term divine, 
to express that which goes forth from the Godhead. 
By divinity, we mean the radios Deitatis as Jerome 
calls it, the radiations of Deity, that which is not, 
when taken by itself, infinite, but proceeds from God. 
All our light and love, our good and truth, are an 
emanation, or undulation from the eternal Goodness. 
It is somewhat of the Divinity in us, and makes him 
who receives it, in a mitigated sense, an Immanuel, an 
individuality which is an outgrowth of the Deity. 



72 



TIIE MENTAL-CUKE. 



The doctrine of mental spheres explains many phe- 
nomena in the science of mind, and is of much practi- 
cal value and comes into constant application, with 
every one who would cure disease by spiritual reme- 
dies. What we call sympathy and antipathy finds 
here its cause and explanation. When the sphere of 
two or more persons is homogeneous and concordant, 
their spiritual emanations meet and mingle without 
repulsion, like the vibrations occasioned by musical 
instruments in tune. Their life blends in harmony, 
constituting nearness, union, and sympathy. The 
opposite of this is antipathy. All associations and 
conjunctions in the realm of spirit are thus effected. 
All disjunction, separation, and remoteness, which are 
there a feeling, rather than distance of space, are the 
result of discordant spheres. Like joins itself to like, 
by a law * invariable in the spirit-world, as that of 
gravitation and chemical affinity in this. 

There are many persons of a negative and passive 
nature, who are easily affected by these subtle influ- 
ences. There seems to be no reactive force in their 
mental organism to repel them. They are like a ves- 
sel at sea impelled by sails, and at the mercy of every 
wind that blows, and not like the powerful steamer 
driven by a force within, and pursuing its course 
against opposing currents and contrary winds. They 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 



73 



become impregnated at once by the influence of more 
positive minds, with whom they happen to come in 
contact. There are many disorderly, inharmonious 
mental states, that affect even the body, that are the 
result of this peculiar organism and susceptibility of 
the patient, and they only need the influence of some 
more positive will, adequate to the casting out of de- 
mons, to restore them to mental and moral soundness. 
Here is the secret origin of more diseases of mind and 
body than the world at large is aware of. There are 
many subtle causes at work to generate a diseased 
condition, which the science of Pathology does not 
notice. And I believe with the force of a conviction, 
that within the vast storehouse of nature, there lie 
concealed very many undeveloped, and unused force? 
and laws, that are available for the cure of the dis 
eases that flesh is heir to. Science is beginning to 
turn its attention in that direction and to explore 
this # hitherto unknown realm of spiritual causation. 
The attempt will be fruitful in results. 

It is worthy of observation, before leaving this topic, 
to remark, that the spiritual emanations, or those that 
proceed from our affectional and intellectual states, 
infuse themselves into the natural sphere continually 
flowing from the body, This latter is poured forth 
from the palms of the hands more copiously than from 



74 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

any other part of the body, because, as has been de- 
monstrated by the microscope, the pores are there 
the most numerous. Hence the imposition of hands 
was not once an unmeaning ceremony, nor a mere 
sign or symbol. It was an actual communication 
of spiritual life. Our affectional states, which are 
our inmost vital force, are communicated by the 
touch, which is the sense sacred to the love. Hence 
in blessing others — as Jacob his sons, and Christ 
little children — the hands were placed upon the 
head. The mental sphere also goes forth with 
the breath. Hence Jesus, who perfectly understood 
these laws, breathed on his disciples, and said, "Re- 
ceive ye the holy spirit" ( Jno. xx. 22), and thus 
imparted to them, so far as they were recipient of it, 
his own gentle, loving, and tranquil frame of mind. 
Thus we have a silent but powerful influence, for good 
or evil, over those who come within the sphere of our 
minds. Our touch is morally healthful or poisonous, 
and our very presence is salutary or noxious. There 
goes out with our breath a celestial aura, or a hellish 
miasm. Our spiritual states are contagious, and it is 
a serious and earnest thing to live and move among 
our fellows. Many of our troublesome thoughts, and 
unhappy feelings, are excited in us by the sphere of 
those around us, and come to us from spirits in the 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 75 

flesh, rather than from those who have passed to the 
world beyond, to whom they are often unjustly charg- 
ed. There is a tendency, through the operation of 
this law of our minds, to make all others like ourselves. 
This tendency is not originated, but only intensified, 
by the action of our wills. Even if we are outwardly 
good, but interiorly selfish and corrupt, our influence 
will be morally unwholesome and deleterious. Through 
a beautiful garb of feigned sanctity, the sphere of the 
real character will penetrate and spread, as the odor 
of a decaying body will make its way through a 
shroud of the finest linen. The best way to be use- 
ful, is to be inwardly good and true. And it is one 
of our highest duties to be innocently happy, not 
merely for our own sake, but for the general weal. For 
our life will mingle itself with the ocean of created 
mind, and we should seek so to live, that our tributa- 
ry stream be not added to it as a turbid element. 



76 TIIE MENTAL-CUKE. 



CHAPTER IX. 

OF THE DOCTRINE OF INFLUX, AND THE RELA- 
TION OF MAN TO THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. 

The nature of Influx. — The Unity of Life. — The mind not 
self-moved. — Thought not self- originated. — Teaching of 
Paul. — Of John the Baptist. — Doctrine of Innate Ideas 
overturned by Locke. — Truth transmissible. — Man's Vital 
Relation to the other World. — Quotation from S/w 
borg. — All Knowledge an Inspiration. — Modern Spiritual- 
ism. — How the Old Testament Scriptures were given. — 
The Demon of Socrates.— Jesus on the Mount. — John in 
Patmos. — Swedenborg 's Intercourse with the Spiritual 
World. — Sensational Philosophy Unsound. — Locke's 
Essay. — Condillac. — Original Suggestion. — How Knowl- 
edge is communicated. — Propaqation of mental States. — 
Mesmeric State how produced. 

THE WORD influx signifies an inflowing, and is 
applied to all that in us which is not self-origin- 
ated, hut derived. The doctrine of influx is closely 
related to that of mental spheres, discussed in the 
previous chapter. 

It is a fundamental truth, that there is one only- 
Life, from which all in heaven and earth receive their 



THE MENTAL-CU11E. 77 

being, but each in a different degree. But life in its 
last analysis is love. All the phenomena of our inte- 
rior nature are referable to affection and thought, or 
to will and understanding. The movements of the 
love and the intellect generate all the various states 
of the mind. But are these self-moved, or do they 
act as they are acted upon by some living force applied 
to them ? That which constitutes our essential life 
is momentarily received from its central source, the 
Divinity within, or descends to us through the 
mediation of angels and spirits, who receive it in 
the same way. The first is an immediate or direct 
influence, and the latter a mediate influx. There is 
nothing that lives from itself except the uncreated 
One, though we may appear to ourselves to posses? 
an independent existence, because the influx from 
above is continual and uninterrupted. The idea oi 
the unity of life in all the multifarious forms of 
existence, is a basic verity, and its recognition, not 
as a theory or an external dogma, but as a vital, 
conscious truth, is essential to a genuine spiritual 
state. The more fully we come to realize it, the 
more receptive we are of an influent wisdom and 
love. It is also to be borne in mind, that the inflow- 
ing life from God is the same in all, but is varied ac- 
cording to the state of man and the form or quality 



78 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

of the recipient spirit, just as a fluid receives its form 
from the containing vessel, and light is modified by 
the substance through which it is transmitted. 

All thought, and consequently all knowledge, des- 
cend to us from above. Paul declares, " that we are 
not able of ourselves to think any thing as of our- 
selves." (2 Cor. iii. 5.) And a greater than he 
affirms, that "A man can take nothing to him- 
self except it be given him from above." (Jno. iii. 
17.) Our ideas must originate somewhere. They 
were not born in us, but only the faculty to contain 
them, and the power to be conscious of them. The 
doctrine of innate ideas has long since been exploded. 
Since Locke assailed it with a keen and irresistible 
logic, it has been banished from mental science, 
though he was not equally successful in settling the 
question of the real origin of our knowledge. As our 
thoughts are not innate, there was a time when we 
had them not. Hence they must have been imparted 
to us. Truth is the reality of things, it is a substance, 
a spiritual something, that can be imparted from one 
mind to another, just as really as a fluid can be made 
to pass from one vessel to another on a lower level, or, 
to employ a closer analogy, as light can emanate from 
one body to another. It is a thing, a substance, di- 
vinely real. God is truth, and all truth is originally 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 79 

in and from hini. But whenee does it usually come to 
us? Swedenborg, whom I quote not as an author- 
ity, but as an illuminated mind, whose opinions are 
worthy of respect and attention, asserts that it flows 
in from our living connection with the spiritual realm. 
No individual is an isolated existence, but the whole 
universe of created minds are bound up in the same 
bundle of life. The Swedish philosopher observes, 
" It is in consequence of this communication that a 
man enjoys the faculty of perception, and the power 
of thinking analytically on all subjects ; and if this 
connection were sundered, he would be incapable of 
any more or other kind of thought than a beast, and 
also if this commerce with spirits should be taken 
away from him, or intercepted entirely, he would in- 
stantly die." (T. C. K. 475.) For no one can live 
by himself alone, nor could he have affection and 
thought, for these are the vital activities of the mind. 
All our ideas, according to him, flow in from above. 
There cannot be in us the least excitement of thought, 
without this influent vital force from the spiritual 
realm. It logically follows from this that all truth, 
all knowledge, all light in us is an inspiration, and to 
receive light and love by the commerce of our spirits 
with the heavens above, is the normal state of the 
human mind. And what is called modern spiritual- 



80 TUE MENTAL-CURE. 

ism is only an instinctive reaction of the general mind 
against the unnatural condition it has been in for 
centuries. According to Paul, the Old Testament 
Scriptures were given through the mediation of an- 
gels. Many of the greatest and best minds of the 
world's history lived in communication with the inner 
spheres. Socrates had his demon or good spirit who 
attended him and admonished him by impression. 
He respectfully listened to the interior voice. Jesus, 
on the mount of transfiguration, communed with 
Moses and Elijah. If this had been contrary to the 
divine order of our being, would he have set the 
world so bad an example ? To his pure spirit the 
heavens were continually opened, and his receptive 
soul was held open toward them. By communication 
with an angelic human spirit, John received the 
Apocalypse. If sugIi communication is necessarily 
wrong in us, it was in him, and we ought to purge the 
Scriptures of the offensive document. Swedenborg 
for twenty-six years walked and talked with spirits 
and angels, and, as he affirmed, in a way perfectly 
harmonious with the laws of the mind, and without a 
miracle. It was only a return to the primitive order 
of our being. And why may not a disciple of his phi- 
losophy do the same ? Why may not all, if they come 
to the knowledge of those mental laws that govern in 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 81 

this case ? It cannot for a moment be admitted that 
he obtained a monopoly of this high and holy com- 
merce with the skies. He may have had a distinct 
use to accomplish in the plan of Providence. But the 
opening of his inner senses was no miracle. In the 
progress of the spiritual development of mankind, it 
may become common. But we are aware of the evil 
effects of attempting to enjoy an open intercourse 
with the other world, unless we are normally unfolded 
to a degree which shall render it natural. 

It was for many years a favorite theory that our 
knowledge is to be attributed in its origin to the ac- 
tion of the senses. But there must be interior sight 
before there can be outward vision. The senses are 
all correspondences, that is they are effects, of which 
something in our spiritual nature is the cause. And 
the action of that superior or interior power in the 
mind, to which each of the bodily senses corresponds, 
or of which it is the outward expression, must be 
anterior to the action of the sense, for the reason that 
a cause is prior to an effect. A man may look to- 
wards a tree, yet if the attention is not directed to it, 
he sees it not. And how many sounds are unheard 
when we are asleep or in a re very, yet the atmosphe- 
ric vibrations are received by the ear. In the sensa- 
tional philosophy of the seventeenth century, it was 



82 TUB MENTAL-CUKE. 

asserted that all our ideas have their origin in the ac- 
tion of the bodily senses. The celebrated treatise of 
Locke ( Essay on the Human Understanding) was 
written as a defense of this theory. It was advocated 
in Fiance by Condillac, and became the current doc- 
trine of mental science in Europe. The prevailing 
systems, at the present time, attribute only our first 
knowledge to this source. But there is a class of 
ideas that are supposed to arise from what is called 
"original suggestion," which, unless our knowledge 
is self-created, is only another name for intuition. 
And this is identical with spiritual influx. All knowl- 
edge is from above and cometh down from the Father 
of lights, and from lesser luminaries enlightened by 
him, and reflecting to us the effulgence they receive. 
" With him ( and them) are hid all the treasures of 
wisdom and knowledge." Truth is not to be class- 
ed among created things. Creation can only be pred- 
icated of the forms receptive of it. The senses may 
be like the steel that brings the spark from the flint, 
but the fire was there before the steel brought it out. 
The latter did not create it. It only came to mani- 
festation through its agency. So the senses do not 
originate knowledge, but only mark that degree of 
the mind, which is the first theatre of its manifesta- 
tion. Lut its source is not there. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 83 

Let us suppose a case that lies within the range of 
possibility and sometimes of actual fact. A child is 
born whose outward senses have never been called 
into action. In its birth, its natural life becomes 
extinct. The candle is quenched in its lighting. It 
never saw, or heard, or felt, or tasted. What is to be 
the condition of such a mind, fo*f no one would affirm 
that it was a soulless thing? Must it become an 
eternal blank ? Must it remain a created receptacle 
doomed to be an eternal vacuity and emptiness ? Ac 
cording to the current doctrine, such must be its fate, 
or annihilation. If our knowledge originates with 
the action of the bodily senses, as these were never 
called into activity, the mind of such a child mus+ 
remain empty of all ideas or be exterminated. Such 
is the necessary inference from the premises. If we 
are shocked at such a conclusion, it is because of the 
absurdity and falsity of the doctrine with which we 
start. That thought is self-originated, is an infinite 
falsity. The losing sight of God and of our vital re- 
lation to the spititual world, has been the perpetual 
fault of philosophy for ages. If thought can origin- 
ate in us, why not life as well ? If the material world 
acting upon our bodily senses, conveys to us the first 
ray of knowledge, why may it not originate our life ? 
Then outward nature becomes to us God, and we 



84 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

plunge into the starless night of materialism. The 
bodily senses are only organized matter. How can 
the motion of their fibres create thought ? Is knowl- 
edge a material emanation ? Matter, in all its forms, 
is in itself dead and passive. It acts only as it is 
acted upon. It moves only as it is moved. If the 
motion of matter creates thought, it creates the mind 
that thinks, for thought is only a state of mind. The 
material universe may then be supposed to be the crea- 
tor of the Divine Mind, and God himself becomes a 
creature. Here, by an easy descent, we fall into blank 
atheism. Thus philosophy has walked about forages 
with its disciples, on the brink of a precipice. By a 
few short logical steps they plunge into the abyss of 
a cheerless infidelity. And this descent to Avernus 
has been found by many too easy. 

We have spoken of knowledge received by influx, 
as an emanation from one mind to another. But we 
have done so only in the same way as the chemist 
speaks of light and heat as radiant forces, as if parti- 
cles of a luminous fluid darted off into space. This 
theory is abandoned, and light is proved to be only a 
vibration. In its essence it is motion, force. One 
body illuminates another by communicating its mo- 
tion to it, and not by pouring into it a luminous fluid. 
So one mind imparts its knowledge and affectional 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 85 

states to another, by causing it to vibrate in harmony 
with it. The mind is like a divinely constructed 
stringed instrument. An angel's intellect may com- 
municate its motion to its harp strings, and a celestial 
music is the result. Thought and affection are not 
something that go forth from the mind that thinks 
and feels. They are states, interior movements of the 
thinking, feeling substance. And as one vibrating 
string, will communicate its motion to another in 
tune with it, so one mind imparts its intellectual life 
to another. The mind is capable of all knowledge, 
when it is subjected to the action of divine and ce- 
lestial forces, j-ust as a musical instrument, properly 
constructed, is capable of producing the most raptur- 
ous sounds, when the hand of a skillful player imparts 
to it the necessary motion. 

In harmony with this law of the action of mind 
upon mind, we all know how readily our mental states 
are imparted to others. A state of fear in some one 
individual, will spread through a whole army in a few 
minutes of time. One sad person in a company, will 
throw a gloom over the entire assembly. One cheer- 
ful happy soul will communicate its spiritual sun- 
shine to hundreds. The presence of a genial, loving 
heart, is a treasure to a whole community. A sour, 
morose, misanthropic mind, in a social assembly, 



8 " THE MENTAl-CURE. 

changes the joyful music of all hearts to a funeral 
dirge. One ruling mind will convert all in its prcs . 
ence to its own modes of thought and feeling. \Yl lat 
is called the mesmeric state, is produced hy the ac- 
tion of the same law, only the effect is intensified. 
What are called the magnetic passes are not neces- 
sary to its production. We have thrown many per- 
sons into this state, some of them miles away, but 
never once made use of the prescribed passes. It is 
the action of mind on mind. In the same way, those 
who revel in the light of a higher day, and ,he beams 
of a brighter sun, may impart to us their sublime.- 
thoughts, and their happier affections. Revelation 
from the inner realm has never ceased, but mil be 
endlessly progressive. The heavens will always 
speak to man on earth. For it is the established or- 
der of creation, that life and light should descend 
from the higher to the lower, from the interior to 
the external, from the inner to the outer circles of 
existence. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 87 



CHAPTER X. 

THE RELATION OF SOUL AND BODY, AND OF 
THE MATERIAL TO THE SPIRITUAL REALM. 

Three Theories respecting the Connection of the Body and the 
Spirit. — Aristotle. — Cartesian Doctrine. — Leibnitz. — 
Man a Microcosm. — The Body an Effect. — The Face and 
our inward Feelings. — The States of the Mind affect the 
Body. — Fear and Asthma. — Disease originates in abnor- 
mal Mental States. — Chemical Preparations inadequate to 
a Cure. — Quotation from Dr. Taylor. — Mind the organ- 
izing Force. — Relation of the Visible to the Invisible World. 
— Where is the Spiritual Realm f — Material things inclose 
a Spiritual Essence. — Pneumatopathy or Mental Hygiene. 

THERE HAVE been three theories respecting the 
relation of our outward organism to the inte- 
rior spiritual principle. Two of these recognize in 
their connection the relation of cause and effect, but 
differ as to which is the one or the other, which is 
prior and which is posterior. The first theory is that 
of physical influx, or that matter influences mind. 
This was taught by Aristotle, and the sensualistic 
schools of philosophy in all subsequent ages. By 



88 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

some, mind has been viewed as the result of a sub- 
limation of matter. This first theory has appearance 
in its favor — an evidence always unreliable and 
often deceptive. 

The seeond is, that matter is influenced and gov- 
erned by spirit, and derives all its life from it. All 
its changes, forms, and phenomena, are effects of 
which something spiritual is the cause. This idea 
pervades the Cartesian philosophy, and was adopted 
by Swedenborg. 

The third is that of pre-established harmony, or 
that neither acts upon the other, but both were made 
to act in concert. This theory was advocated by 
the celebrated Leibnitz. We are not aware that it 
is seriously advocated by any one at present, and 
may be left without further notice. It only belongs 
to the history of human opinions. In the other two 
doctrines, we choose between theism and atheism. If 
there be a God, creation has gone forth from him. 
But God is a Spirit. Consequently the material uni- 
verse owes its origin and its continued existence and 
control, to an all-pervading divine force, distinct from 
matter, as a cause from an effect. But man is a 
microcosm, a world in himself, and his body sustains 
the same relation to the soul that the outward uni- 
verse does to God. The body without the spirit is 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 89 

dead. Consequently it has no life of its own and in 
itself. Its vital force is derived from the all-pervad- 
ing spirit. It is an effect of which the soul is the 
cause. As some one has said, " The active aplastic 
principle is the soul — the true man, of which the 
"body is hut the external expression and instrument." 
It is not merely the outward envelope of the in- 
terior man, but is pervaded by it, as light is dif- 
fused through a crystal vase of water. Hence it 
becomes transparent to all the states of the soul. 
Every emotion expresses itself in the face. In a 
countenance that has not been taught to dissemble, 
all the varying affections and emotions of the mind 
are there visibly displayed. Every change in our 
feelings, produces a correspondent arrangement of 
the moving fibres of the face. Here is a visible 
effect resulting from a spiritual cause. But every 
part of the body corresponds to something in the mind 
— the hands, the feet, the hair, the brain, the stomach, 
the lungs, the heart, and all the internal organs. 
These have no vital action except as they receive it 
by influx from the indwelling soul. And every organ 
in our bodily structure, is only the outward manifes- 
tation of a correspondent part and function of our 
spiritual nature. Consequently our mental states 
affect the condition and action of the various organs 



90 TITE MENTAL-CURE. 

— in fact, are the body's health or malady. They 
first influence the intermediate principle, denominated 
the spiritual body, then the brain and nerves, and 
then the various organs. Every abnormal mental 
state ultimates itself in a correspondent bodily condi- 
tion. Let us illustrate this by the effect of fear or a 
sudden fright. It immediately quickens, and at the 
same time weakens, the action of the heart. Its reg- 
ular contraction and dilatation are changed to a 
spasmodic flutter. A nervous thrill is felt in the 
epigastric region or pit of the stomach. This is in 
the diaphragm, which loses its contractility, and be- 
comes relaxed, so that the respiration is impeded and 
oppressed. The blood retreats from the surface in- 
ward, and from the extremities upward. Such are 
its immediate effects. If the mental state producing 
this order of things should become permanent, in the 
form of anxiety, the corresponding bodily condition 
will be chronic. And a common disease, called asth- 
ma, is the result. But fear will no more really affect 
the body than any other disorderly mental state. Mel- 
ancholy, envy, jealousy, anger, disappointed affection, 
produce each its specific effect. All diseases originate 
in some abnormal states of the mind, some disturbance 
or loss of harmony in the inner man, and are but the 
ultimation, or passing outward to the region of visi- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 9l 

ble effects in the material organism, of those disorder- 
ed mental conditions. To ascertain the nature and 
cause of the disturbed state of mind underlying the 
physical troubles of a patient, is of greater importance 
than an examination of the pulse or the tongue. If 
the action of the heart, the diaphragm, the lungs, or 
the liver, is not healthy, we desire to know what is the 
cause of their disordered physiological manifestations. 
It is of no avail to apply chemical preparations to a 
cause that chemistry cannot reach. It is of no use 
to administer stimulants and tonics, when the patient 
needs only encouragement and sympathy. Why give 
opium and narcotic drugs, when it is only the excited 
mind that needs to be quieted, and there needs to be 
" plucked from the heart a rooted sorrow ?" Why 
give physic to a man who only needs instruction and 
ideas? Says Dr. Taylor, "Diseases are perpetuated, if 
not produced, by causes over which mere chemical 
influences cannot be presumed to exercise any posi- 
tive control. This fact may be, often is, tacitly 
acknowledged by the physician, but he declines to 
investigate its relations, so as to be able to turn them 
to a useful account. He is unwilling to acknowledge 
in practice, although he may admit confidentially, 
that the headache, the nervousness, the heart disease, 
the dyspeptic qualms which he is called upon to rem- 



92 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

edy, are only indications of a peculiar morbid state of 
the mind or of the emotional nature of the sufferer, which 
it becomes him to meet directly, rather than to tor- 
ment his patient with an eternal round of palliatives. 
In these cases, every medical prescription must be 
totally irrelevant (though written in the best Latin), 
unless it recognizes the operation of causes existing 
in a sphere quite beyond the reach of the most 
potent drug." 

He further observes, " The jests that used to be 
hurled at the defenceless head of the practitioner who 
dared to suggest that the thoughts, and feelings, and 
mental habits of the invalid might need rectifying as 
well as his bile and blood, are fast losing their point. 
We are all beginning to suspect that perhaps, after 
all, a disease may not be the less a disease because its 
source happens to lie in an unruly imagination, or in 
excessive activity, or wrong modes of thought. And 
gradnally — very slowly to be sure — yet really, we 
think people are waking up to the conviction that 
these intangible causes are not irremediable. They 
are beginning to see and understand that by this close 
union and cooperation of the material and immate- 
rial natures, remedial agents may possibly find access 
to either or both these avenues that otherwise could 
have no existence. We have faith to believe that 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 93 

the time is near at hand when the mental aspects and 
relations of disease will receive an amount of atten- 
tion equal to that which has always been given to 
the pulse and the tongue, the temperature of the skin, 
and color and consistence of the excretions." 
(Movement Cure, p. 388, 389.) 

The body is an organization of material substances, 
by which we mean the arrangement of its particles 
so as to form organs or instruments adapted to use. 
But unless the particles are self-moved, which no 
one but a disciple of Epicurus would argue, the mind 
must be the organizing force. The body is only the 
evolution of the mind, and the means of its external 
manifestation. The whole material universe is the 
ultimation of the spiritual world. The spiritual 
realm is the animus mundi, the soul of the outward 
visible creation, and the latter exists from the former. 

If you ask where we locate the spirit-world ? we 
answer, it is where our spirits are, for our inner na- 
ture belongs to it and is a part of it. The spiritual 
world is the interior realm, and it is not separated 
from this by spatial distance, but it is as near to this 
as our souls are to our bodies. It is in the center of 
the universe and in its circumference; it is in the 
Milky Way, and the fixed stars, and it is here and 
now. The kingdom of heaven is within. Jesus pro- 



94 THE MENTAL-CUKE. 

claimed the great truth that it was at hand, so near as 
to be within our grasp. Spiritual substance is the 
soul of things, and the angel-world is interfused 
within this. But things become real, substantial, and 
living, in proportion as they are interior. We may 
gain some idea of this by observing that all sub- 
stances that can be perceived by the senses, have 
other substances more subtle within them. Thus 
all solids contain water in their interstices or pores, 
even those that seem the dryest. Suppose the globe 
we inhabit to be a solid sphere. It contains within 
and around it water. It is enveloped with aqueous 
vapor, that surrounds and penetrates it* This is dis- 
tinct from the solid contents, but is contained within 
them and around them, and we may conceive it to be 
a world by itself abstracted from the solid earth. In 
fact, nearly three-fourths of this earthy system is 
water. And it was taught by Thales more than two 
thousand years ago, that the earth was formed from 
the water. There may be truth in this. But water 
contains within it and around it, air enough to sup- 
port the life of fishes, whose gills serve them for lungs 
where their blood is oxygenated. The atmosphere ex- 
tends upward to the distance of forty-five miles and 
more. It penetrates the ocean, and may be viewed as 
a world or sphere, interior to the earthy solids and 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 95 

the aqueous element. But the atmosphere has three 
degrees. Within and around the air is the ether, whose 
vibrations, according to Euler, produce light, and 
the various phenomena of electricity. The ether 
contains within it the aura, which is not cognizable by 
the senses. This may be identical with or analo- 
gous to the odylic force discovered by the Baron 
Reichenbach. It may be the same as the animal 
spirits of the older physiologists, the nervous fluid, 
the medium through which mind acts upon matter, 
as the will upon muscular fibre. It constitutes the 
boundary line between the natural and the spiritual 
world. Next to this, but discrete or distinct from it, 
is the spiritual world in its lowest or outermost de- 
gree. Thus in thought we may proceed through the 
three heavens, each within the other, until we come to 
the sun of the spiritual world, which is the first sub- 
stance, and the sphere immediately or proximately sur- 
rounding the Lord, the central life. We may conceive 
of creation as going forth from him in successive waves, 
and the various degrees may be represented to the eye 
by so many concentric circles. He is the living cen- 
tre. Around this is what is called the sun of heaven. 
Further outward is the celestial heaven, then 
the spiritual heaven, then the ultimate or lowest 
neaven, then the world of spirits or the intermediate 



96 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

realm, and then the natural world in its various 
degrees. This is the outside circumference of being, 
where the creative wave terminates. It is the furthest 
removed from the vital center, not by distance of space, 
but in the degrees of life. It being the furthest from 
the central life, is what we mean by the term ultimate. 
The word means the furthest and sometimes the last. 
Creation in its successive degrees has rolled off in dis- 
tinct waves of being, like concentric circles, or rather 
spheres within spheres, and here it terminates. This 
world is the furthest and last, and is the basis, the 
continent, and the firmament, of the other degrees. 

But is it possible for us to comprehend how natu- 
ral substance is the ultimation of spiritual substance ? 
There are things analogous to it, which may throw 
some light upon it, yet they are only remote analo- 
gies. Every visible object, or every thing cogniza- 
ble to the senses, is composed of invisible particles 
or atoms. These by themselves are so minute that 
none of our senses are affected by them. It is by 
their combination that they become visible and tan- 
gible. Thus what we call a material object, that is, 
one that is cognizable to the sight or touch, is 
composed of a substance that cannot be detected by 
the senses. A muscular fibre is composed of thou- 
sands of fibrils bound together, and each fibril of 



TIIE MENTAL -CURE. 97 

others still more minute, and these of primary atoms. 
Water is composed of two gases, hydrogen and 
oxygen. The diamond is solidified or crystaliz- 
ed carbonic acid gas. Thus the diamond may be 
called the ultimation of that gas. All vegetable 
structures and tissues are combinations of various 
gases, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen, with 
a small amount of earthy salts. These gases may, 
and probably do, owe their origin to more subtile 
substances, and these to others, and they to spiritual 
substance, which is discrete from them, but may be 
ultimated in the form we call matter. 

There is in every material object a spiritual es- 
sence, which is as a soul in its body. The external 
form which is manifest to our senses, is the corres- 
pondent and representation of that invisible and pneu- 
matical substance. 

To the everywhere-present spiritual world we sus- 
tain a vital relation. All the involuntary functions of 
the body, as the action of the heart and the lungs, 
are carried on by a force received thence by influx, 
though the action of all the organs may be affected 
by the .influence of our own minds and wills. 

If the ideas we have unfolded in this chapter are 
sound, and we think they cannot be succesfully con- 
troverted, they constitute a new mode of medical 



98 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

treatment, and may form the basis of a succesful prac- 
tice of the healing art. It is a law, on the operation 
of which we may rely, that where a diseased condi- 
tion of the body is c used by a disordered and morbid 
state of the spiritual life, if we can induce upon our- 
selves, either directly or through the medium of oth- 
ers, the opposite modes of thought and feeling as a 
permanent mental state, it will cure the disease. Hun- 
dreds of facts could be given to prove the uniformity 
of the action of this law. All that is necessary is the 
power intuitively to detect the morbid state of the 
mind underlying the disease, and how to convert the 
patient to a more healthful inner life. All disease is, 
in its cause, an insanity, using the term in its radical 
or etymological sense, rather than in its common ac- 
ceptation. Its secret spring is some abnormality, un- 
soundness of the mind, some departure from that 
most happy of all earthly conditions, expressed in the 
terse line of Juvenal, soma mens in sano corpore, a sound 
mind in a sound body. And we think the time is not 
far distant, when this fundamental truth will be more 
fully recognized and conformed to by all medical 
practitioners. The therapeutic systems that ac- 
knowledge the influence of the mind upon the body, 
are the most succesful in the cure of disease, as those 
of Hahnemann, Ling, and the practitioners of what 
is called magnetism , 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 99 



CHAPTER XI. 

CORRESPONDENCE OF THE BRAIN AND THE 
MIND. 

The Brain the Organ of the external Manifestations of the 
Mind,. — Its extension into the Body. — Its two Substances 
and their Correspondence. — The Positive and Negative 
Forces. — The Brain first formed in the Fetus. — Fleurality 
of its Organs. — Sympathetic Connection of the Bodily 
Organs with it. — The three Brains. — Their Relation to 
the Degrees of the Mind. — Their independent Action. — 
The Cerebrum and its Correspondence. — The Cerebellum. 
— Sleep- Waking. — Mental Exaltation. — Freedom from 
the bodily Senses. — The Medulla Oblongata. — State of the 
Mind and Body in the Trance . — Scientific View of Death. 

THE BRAIN is the immediate organ of the spirit 
of man, or is a mediate substance through 
which the mind acts upon and into the rest of the 
body, and through which mind is externally manifest- 
ed in this lower stage of our being. It corresponds 
or answers to the mind, as an echo to the original 
sound. Its sensitive fibres respond to every change 
in the inner life. It is the veil drawn over the inte- 



100 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

rior man, tremulous and wavy to all its motions. But 
the brain is extended through the whole body, by 
means of myriads of white cords or rays proceeding 
from the cerebro-spinal center, and interfused through 
all the living textures. So the soul-principle is co- 
extensive witji it, and is everywhere in the organic 
structure. 

All the manifold forms of mental life and action 
may be arranged into two grand divisions, and are 
activities cither of the love or intellect. In all the 
endless variety of human character and condition, one 
or the other of these two departments is uppermost, 
and rules. What we call the mind is the union of 
these two into a harmonious unity. The one is posi- 
tive and the other negative, for polarity is a universal 
property of things. We have everywhere action and 
reaction in the outward world, answering to love and 
intellect in the realm of spirit. All the phenom- 
ena of nature are generated by two distinct forces. 
A large proportion of mineral or earthy compounds 
are formed by the union of a positive alkali and a nega- 
tive acid, whose combination produces the endless 
variety of the salts of chemistry. In the body we 
have the mucous and serous membranes, with their 
positive and negative secretions, the harmonious rela- 
tion ol which is necessary to its healthy functional 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 101 

action. So in the composition of the cerebral mass, 
there are two distinct substances, for the brain is the 
echo of the mind. There is a greyish, cineritious, 
or ash-colored substance, and a white medullary or 
fibrous substance. The ash of the former exhibits an 
alkaline reaction ; that of the latter is acjid. The one 
is positive ; the other negative. The cineritious por- 
tion is relatively external, and has been called the 
cortical substance, because it is as the bark or rind 
of the other. The fibrous portion is below it. The 
first has been pronounced by some the correspondent 
of the will or love. It is arranged into clusters like 
grapes, and the fibres radiate from them as beams of 
light from a luminous center. The nerves extend- 
ing from the brain and spinal column, are only fas- 
cicles or bundles of these two kinds of cerebral sub- 
stance, inclosed in a sheath called the neurilemma. 
The lower part of the brain corresponds to the in- 
tellect, and is the medium through which it acts 
upon the body. The brain is first formed in the body 
of the fetus, and the rest of the organism is an out- 
growth from it. The life of man is first in the brain, 
and derivatively through the nervous system, in the 
rest of the body. The brain is the connecting link 
which unites the inner man to the outer. As the 
mind consists of a pleurality of faculties combined 



102 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

into a harmonious unity, so there is a correspondent 
pleurality of organs in the brain, as was demonstrated 
by Dr Gall. For distinct functions require different 
instruments for their performance. But as all pleu- 
rality proceeds from a fundamental unity, or from 
one as its rooj, so this does not destroy the unity of 
either the soul or the body. The most perfect one- 
ness is that which is made by the combination of the 
greatest number of various and harmonious parts. 
The doctrine of a pleurality of organs in the brain, and 
a knowledge of their special functions in the mani- 
festations of the mind, is the science of Phrenolo- 
gy — a branch of human knowledge yet in its infancy 
and formative stage. There are many discoveries 
not made by Dr. Gall, in relation to the sympathetic 
connection of the various organs of the body with 
particular parts of the brain, whence they receive 
their vital stimulus, which are of great importance 
in the system of Mental Hygiene. 

The whole body is connected with the brain. By 
means of the grand systems of ganglionic and sympa- 
thetic nerves, every organ is united to every other, as 
by a sort of spiritual telegraph, and the whole with 
the mind. This explains a mystery. It is known 
from experience, and comes under the cognition of 
consciousness, that particular mental states or facul- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 103 

tics act into and affect certain organs of the body. 
It was given the most remarkable man of modern 
history, " to know this from much experience." The 
influx of certain feelings, which was first into the appro- 
priate parts of the brain, was seen to affect the organs 
of the body that were in sympathetic conjaection with 
those portions of the cerebral structure. Those parts 
are like the key of the telegraph. Place your finger 
upon them, and your influence sends a message which 
is at once recorded in the distant organ. Your mind 
in that way acts upon that part of the cerebrum, and 
the bodily organ, through the telegraphic nerves, res- 
ponds with a vibratory motion in harmony with your 
own mental force. We have a thousand times in 
this way affected sensibly to the consciousness of the 
patient the functional activity of any part of the 
body. But to do this, requires a knowledge of the 
anatomical structure not given the student in his 
usual course of medical study. The heart, the lungs, 
the diaphragm, the stomach, the liver, the kidneys, 
and the intestinal canal, are all bound by sympathy 
with certain parts of the brain, and the faculties 
of the mind to which those parts correspond. Thus 
we are prepared to see more clearly still, the truth 
of a statement previously made, that the states of 
the mind are ultimated, or recorded, in correspond- 



104 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

ing bodily conditions, and are the body's health 
or malady. 

The mind is not only to be divided into the two 
distinct departments of the love and the intellect, 
but there are three degrees or planes of mental life, 
like the three stories of a palace, or, more correctly, 
like three concentric circles or spheres, each within 
the other. The doctrine of the degrees of the mind 
is imaged in the cerebral system. There are in real- 
ity three brains. We have first the cerebrum, the 
large brain, composed of the two kinds of substance 
of which we have spoken. Then we have the cerebel- 
lum or little brain, about one eighth part of the for- 
mer in size, and containing both kinds of cerebral 
substance ; but what is peculiar, the cineritious por- 
tion is internal, and the fibrous external. Though 
smaller in size, it has far more vitality. For these 
three brains are like the mysterious books of the 
Sybil — as they decrease in quantity, they increase in 
value. Next we have the primitive brain, the medul- 
la oblongata. It is that which is first formed in the 
fetus, and the other portions of the cerebral system 
proceed from it in order. It would' weigh but little 
more than the Koinoor, the mountain of light, the 
celebrated diamond of queen Victoria, but is far more 
valuable. To one whose inner vision is unveiled, 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 105 

there dart from it in every direction millions of rays 
of a pure light into every part of the system. It is 
much smaller than the cerebellum, but a myriad 
times more sensitive and vital. These three distinct 
brains, as we. have reason to believe, are correspond- 
ences and organs of the three degrees of the mind. 
Either may act by itself, or our mental activity, our 
memory and consciousness, and perceptivity, may use 
either as its organ. In our normal state, and our 
waking hours, we use the cerebrum as the instru- 
ment of our thoughts and volitions. This in sleep 
becomes quiescent, as we have had occasion to notice 
in cases of fracture of the skull, where a portion of 
the cranium has been removed. Its pulsations cease, 
and all is still as the tomb. Its vital force has re- 
treated backward and downward to the cerebellum. 
On the dividing line between sleeping and waking, 
the mysterious dream-land, the mental powers become 
greatly exalted and quickened, so that the experi- 
ences and perceptions of hours, and even weeks and 
months, are crowded into moments. The mind 
breaks loose from its material thraldom, the limita- 
tions of time, place, and sense, and asserts its innate 
freedom. It sees without the external eye, and to 
distances almost unlimited. It perceives distant ob- 
jects, persons and things, something as we see the 



106 TUE MENTAL-CURE. 

image of an absent friend in the mind, only with 
more objective clearness, and they do not appear to 
be in the mind, but external to it, like the scenery 
around us in our every-day life. There are those 
who can enter this state at will. It has become, in 
fact, their normal condition. We have experimented 
much with it, putting it to severe tests, a thousand 
miles away, and have found it as reliable as our ordi- 
nary vision. The power of thus suspending the ac- 
tion of the cerebrum, possessed by a scientific person, 
is of great value in the diagnosis of disease. It is a 
condition of the highest wakefulness, though physi- 
ologically it is a state of sleep, and has been denom- 
inated somnambulism. It may exist when the 
external senses are not oblivious to the objects sur- 
rounding us. It is a waking up from their usually 
dormant state of the undeveloped powers of our in- 
ner life. Like the apocalyptic angel, it breaks the 
seals of the closed book of nature, and unrolls the 
parchment on which are written characters that our 
usual vision cannot read, and the wonders of an in- 
ner world pass in panoramic review. The veil of 
sense, ordinarily opaque, becomes transparent, and 
through it the interior man looks out upon the uni- 
verse. It is a state of illustration, or interior illumin- 
ation, which may be permanont, normal, and attend- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 107 

ed with no loss of consciousness as to our external 
surroundings. It is governed by fixed laws, which 
may be the subject of education, but is none the less 
a gift of God for this. Blessed is the man to whom 
it has .been given, and who consecrates it, with all 
his activities, to the good of universal being. 

In the trance, both the cerebrum and cerebellum 
are quiescent ( when it is with the individual subject 
an abnormal state), and their vital force has passed to 
the primitive brain, the medulla oblongata. The mind 
is awakened to the most intense degree of activity 
and power of which it is susceptible, in the present 
stage of our existence. Usually, but not necessarily, 
there is a loss of consciousness of the outward world. 
The pulse sometimes becomes nearly or quite imper- 
ceptible. The movement of the lungs is tacit, and 
the spiritual body only breathes. But these are not 
necessary concomitants of this interior state, for all 
the degrees of the mind may be consciously active at 
the same time. Persons may be developed normally 
into this almost angelio range of the soul's powers 
and activities. In this degree of the inner life the 
heavens are opened, the separating veil is rent if not 
removed, the curtain is rolled up, the invisible appears 
in sight, and the soul is transported in its visicn to the 
perception of the solid and enduring realities of a 



108 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

world veiled in darkness to our common sight. In 
this degree of the unfoldment of the soul's life, man 
possesses in a degree the properties and powers of a 
spirit, and may act upon others as our guardian angels do y 
and seems to be a messenger from another world, to 
demonstrate to mortals the reality of its existence. 
Hidden imponderable forces, to a certain extent, 
come under his control, and he may appear to a sen- 
suous world as a Thaumaturgus, or wonder-worker, 
and like a partially developed Messiah, he heals all 
manner of sickness and disease among the people. 
Such a mind has blossomed into angelic proportions. 
The next step beyond, is what men have called 
death. In every step and degree of progress towards 
it, the mental powers become more and more exalted, 
and their range of action extended. Viewed in this 
scientific light, death is seen to be only transition to 
a higher life. It cannot be a punishment for our sins, 
but a necessary step and normal process in human 
development. Having finished the work committed 
to our hands, and accomplished our appointed use 
here in the plan of Providence, when our friends 
shall call us dead, we shall have only languished into 
life. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 109 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE HEAKT AND LUNGS, AND THEIR RELATION 
TO THE LOVE AND INTELLECT. 

Two Universalis of the Mind. — Answering Organs of the 
Body. — The Extension of the Heart into the System. — 
The Veins and Arteries. — The Heart corresponds to the 
affectional Nature. — Proof. — Influence of our Emotional 
States upon its Action. — And upon Secretion and Nutri- 
tion. — Subtle Element of the Blood. — The Diffusion of the 
Pulmonary Substance. — The Lungs derived from the Heart. 
— They Answer to the Intellect. — Effect of the States of 
Thought upon Respiration. — Relation of the Respiration 
to Voluntary Motion. — To the Sensibility of the Nerves. — 
Influence of Anaesthetic Agents. — How the Mind cam in- 
crease or diminish vital Action. — Sympathetic Movement 
of the Heart and Lungs. — How to regulate the Action of 
the Heart. — How to change our Emotions. — Influence 
of our Mental States upon the vital Functions. — True 
Method of Study in Natural science. — The New Age. — 
Immanence of the Spiritual World. 



EVERY THING that can he predicated of the 
mind has relation either to the love or the in- 
tellect. The reasons on which this classification of 
the mental powers rests, have been given in a pre- 



110 TIFE MENTAL-CURE. 

vious chapter. The will and the love are identical 
and it is an interesting fact that the two words are 
from the same root. Their radical sense is the same. 
The love and the intellect are the two universals of 
the mind, by which we mean something that enters 
into the whole and every part of a subject or thing. 
Since these are the universal and everywhere-present 
principles and elements of our inner organism, and 
since the body has correspondence with the mind, and 
is only the external or ultimate expression of it, we 
should reasonably expect to find in it the echo of our 
spiritual structure in two universal organs. Such in 
fact are the heart and the lungs. An advanced state 
of anatomical science, the result of more accurate 
microscopic and chemical investigation, we doubt not, 
will show that these two organs are in the whole and 
every part of the body. Though located primarily in 
the thorax, by derivation and ramification they are 
present in the whole organism. Such is demonstrably 
true of the heart. The minutest veins and arteries 
which permeate every part of the system, all proceed 
from it and maintain an unbroken connection with it. 
They are continuations of it, and interpenetrate even 
the bones, so that the point of the finest needle can- 
not enter the flesh without coming in contact with 
fibers and tubes proceeding from this central organ, 



THE MENTAL-CURE. Ill 

and by means of which it maintains an omnipresence 
in the body. Its action must affect the condition of 
every part. 

The heart corresponds or answers to the affectional 
nature of man. This is recognized in all languages, 
and unconsciously confessed by all men. It is an 
intuitive truth. Everywhere we speak of a man of 
a kind heart, of a friendly heart, or a warm heart. 
A lack of benevolence and sympathy is denominated 
hard-heartedness. It is a fact also well known that 
the various affections, desires, emotions and passions, 
which are only forms or states of the love, affect 
the systolic and diastolic action of the heart, or its 
contraction and dilatation. This is discernible in the 
pulsations of the arteries and veins, whose motions 
are synchronous with the parent organ from which 
they proceed. Fear, anxiety, anger, grief, melan- 
choly, joy, contentment, hope, and all the affections, 
are responded to by the motions of the heart. There 
is no truth of science capable of a more satisfactory 
demonstration than this. But as the blood contains 
the elements of nutrition, and supplies the means 
of growth and the particles necessary to repair the 
waste of the various tissues, so that they can be 
maintained in their integrity, whatever affects its ac- 
tion must modify these physiological processes. 



112 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

The blood contains a subtile vitalizing element and 
stimulus that chemistry is not adequate to detect. 
It is only the unveiled eye of independent clairvoy- 
ance thart can perceive it, yet it is as necessary to the 
healthy functional action of every organ as sunlight 
to a flower. Without it the organs droop and die, 
like plants smitten with an autumnal frost. It is 
the due supply of this subtle element, the soul-prin- 
ciple of the blood, something like the animal spirits 
of the old physiologists, that occasions the healthy 
glow of warmth in an organ, far more than what we 
call the blood. Its absence in the feet occasions their 
coldness, even where they are crowded with blood. 
Its accumulation is the hidden cause of inflammations 
and congestions. No organ can perform its functions 
without a clue supply and harmonious distribution of 
it, any more than the body can move without the 
spirit. It is the blood of the spiritual body, answer- 
ing the same purpose and accomplishing an analo- 
gous use in the interior form, that the blood does in 
the outward man. We do not call this principle 
electricity, or magnetism, only for the want of a 
better name. It is certainly governed by different 
laws. It is the living aura of the blood, and may 
be identical with the odyle discovered by Reichenbach. 
But by whatever name we call it, the states of the 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 113 

mind immediately affect it, and mediately through it 
the rest of the body. 

As the heart is everywhere present in the body by 
its radiation into the venous and arterial systems, so 
the same is true of the lungs, though in the present 
state of anatomical science it is not so clearly discern- 
ible. The heart is first formed in the fetus, and the 
lungs are an outgrowth from it. The six millions 
of blood-cells are only the terminations of the 
branches of the pulmonary veins and arteries pro- 
ceeding from the heart. The air-cells, so numerous 
as to contain a surface of one hundred and forty 
square feet, when taken together, flow together into 
the bronchial tubes, and these unite to form the 
trachea. But they are all formed from the pericar- 
dium, the membrane investing aud interpenetrating 
the heart, and which surrounds and lines every vein 
and artery. The heart and lungs, thus connected in 
their origin, sympathize in their actions. The more 
rapid the respiration, the faster beats the heart, and 
vice versa. 

As the one corresponds to the love, so the other 
responds to the action of the intellectual nature. We 
are assured by our consciousness that our thoughts 
influence the movement of the lungs. We may be 
as certain of this as of our own existence. The more 



114 



THE MENTAL-OURE. 



interiorly and intently we think, the less we breathe. 
When our thoughts are involuntary and passive, our 
respiration is involuntary and tacit. In certain states 
of mental abstraction, the breathing is almost or quite 
imperceptible, as in the trance. When our thoughts 
are concentrated upon some vigorous muscular mo- 
tion, as striking or lifting, we instinctively precede 
the effort with a deep inspiration, which is a hint of 
great practical importance. As every state of the 
affections influences the movements of the cardiac 
system, so every condition of the intellect affects the 
action of the lungs. These are primary vital motions 
in the organism, whence, by derivation, all other mo- 
tions exist, the involuntary from the heart, and the 
voluntary from the lungs. As involuntary movements 
are attended with no fatigue, or loss of nervous force, 
as the heart is never tired; so our respiration, when 
not the result of our volitions, never wearies us, how- 
ever long and incessantly it is continued. But vol- 
untary and artificial breathing is the most exhausting 
movement we are capable of making. To rest our- 
selves, is to cease from the latter, and to subside into 
the former. An entire cessation of the contractions 
of the muscular tissue of the heart, suspends the 
movements of the involuntary vital organs, but a sus- 
pension of respiration, so that the breathing becomes 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 115 

tacit, only takes away the power of voluntary muscu- 
lar motion, and many persons can do it for hours, as 
the Fakirs of India. It is attended with great intel- 
lectual elevation. In proportion as the breathing is 
diminished or suspended, the body becomes insensible 
to pain. Surgical operations, in this state, would be 
less painful, in fact this suspended respiration and 
consequent insensibility, is what is affected by chloro- 
form. There have been persons who could induce 
upon themselves this state without the use of any an- 
aesthetic agent. To direct the. attention to a part, 
increases its vital action, and its sensitiveness. To 
abstract the mind from it, deprives it of feeling in 
proportion to the degree of mental absent-mindedness. 
To keep our thoughts from an inflamed and painful 
organ, is antiphlogistic, or cooling. The vital ac- 
tion is lowered. To direct the mind and will to a 
negative part, as cold feet, a paralytic limb, or where- 
ever there is a lack of vital force, infuses life into it. 
Thus the mind contains in itself, when its spiritual 
forces are intelligently directed to a given aim, more 
potential virtues than can be found in a drug shop. 
It can take away or add to the vital action of any or- 
gan, and what more do the advocates of drug medi- 
cation profess to do, from their heroic practice, which 
borders on man-slaughter, to the homeopathic and 



116 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

infinitesimal doses, that are next to nothing, if not 
an absolute nihility. But all these results in Mental 
Hygiene, are accomplished by the mind through its 
influence upon the action of the heart and lungs. 

A careful study of the connection between the 
heart and the lungs, their relations to each other, 
their reciprocal influence, and their correspondence 
with the two general departments of the mind, would 
be fruitful in results. The heart is a muscle whose 
contractions and relaxations are not subject directly to 
our control. The action of the lungs is both voluntary 
and involuntary, as they are supplied with both kinds 
of nerves. When we control their movement, they 
receive the necessary stimulus from the cerebrum, 
which is the organ of our voluntary life. When their 
mpvements are passive, the nerve-force comes through 
the cerebellum, the organ of our involuntary life. 
Harmonizing with this action of the pulmonary sys- 
tem, there is active and passive thought. Our affec- 
tions and emotions are not directly under the control 
of our volitions. We cannot love or hate, be joyful 
or sad, at the nod of the will. We have emotions 
and feelings at times, from which we would gladly 
be delivered, and there are other affectional states we 
would fain possess, but they will not come at our call. 
The affections may be indirectly influenced by the 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 117 

intellect. So the action of the heart may be changed 
through the lungs. There is a sympathetic influence 
of the one upon the other. The heart and lungs do 
not contract and expand synchronously, but in the 
ratio of three to one, or the movement of the heart 
may be represented by a measure in music composed 
of three notes, while that of the lungs is a measure 
containing one long note. But this does not des- 
troy the harmony of the rhythm. As there is a sym- 
pathetic connection between the motions of the two 
organs, and as the lungs obey the behest of the will 
we are furnished with the means of indirectly affect- 
ing the action of the heart. If the heart beats too 
quickly and feebly, we have only to breathe more 
slowly and deeply, and the heart will adjust its sys- 
tolic and diastolic movements in harmony with the 
respiration, so as to preserve the ratio of three to one. 
If the pulsations of the cardiac system are too slow, 
then breathe faster, and the heart will conform to the 
action of the lungs. They are like two horses har- 
nessed together to draw the chariot of life, but only 
one of them obeys the rein, yet they feel an impulse 
to act in harmony. If one starts ahead, the other 
soon fol-lows. The reins are attached to only one. 
If you wish to change the movements of the other, 
you must do it through the one connected with 



118 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

your hand. So if we wish to change our emotions and 
feelings, we can do it through the intellect. Change 
the direction of our thoughts, and the affections will fol- 
low. How to induce upon ourselves any desired men- 
tal state, will be the subject of consideration hereafter. 
In what has been said in the brief limits of this 
chapter we may see more clearly the influence of the 
states of the mind over the vital functions and pro- 
cesses of the body. Any system of medical practice 
that does not recognize this great truth, is fundamen- 
tally and radically defective. Physiology and anato- 
my must be unsatisfactory and superficial, while they 
ignore the spiritual organism of man. The true meth- 
od of study in Natural Science is to investigate the 
phenomena of the outer world in relation to the inner 
realm, of matter in its connection with spirit. When 
we rise to the perception of things in their causes, we 
can then und erst; m d effects. We believe without a 
doubt, and affirm without hesitation, that there has 
been introduced among men a new and better method 
of philosophizing, of greater value to the world than 
the Organum of Bacon. It is destined to revolution- 
ize the sciences, and lead to a reconstruction of their 
systems. The science of the correspondence between 
the material and the spiritual departments of nature, 
stretches in an endless and ever-widening perspective 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 119 

into the dim distance of futurity, which is closed to 
all but prophetic intuitions. We live in a transi- 
tional era. Old things are passing away, and a New 
Age has come to the birth. But we now perceive 
only the first feeble rays of the opening morn, which 
rihoot into the solid darkness of the past, that still 
settles heavily down upon the mind of the race. The 
chilling fogs will gradually lift, and show the willing 
feet of coming generations the way to mountain sum- 
mits. The spiritual world is drawing nearer and mix- 
ing itself with human affairs. The heavens are open- 
ing and their living light is falling upon the sightless 
eyeballs of our hitherto blind guides. The door of 
the upper realm of being stands ajar, and the uncreat- 
ed light, in which angelic mind delights to bathe, is 
leaking through. It is a knowledge of spiritual 
things that illustrates nature. When we understand 
the soul of things, we shall be prepared to compre- 
hend more of its outward manifestations. Already has 
the angel-world given us the thread of Ariadne, to 
conduct philosophy out of its labyrinth. A new 
spiritual science has been born in a manger, but, 
thanks be to God, cannot be led to the cross by a 
pharisaic church or learned bigots. The infant in 
his swaddling-cloth has in him a germ of Divinity, 
and the feeble pulsations of an immortal life. 



120 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CORRESPONDENCE OF THE STOMACH AND THE 
MIND. 

The Office of the Stomach.— The Digestive Process.— What 
answers to it in the Mental Economy? — Therapeutic In- 
fluence of new Ideas. — Mental Medicine. — Two Stomachs. 
— Dual Nature of Memory. — Common Forms of Speech 
recognizing the Relation of the Stomach to the Memory, — 
Mental and Bodily Growth. — Mental Vigor necessary to 
Digestion. — Perpetual Spiritual Adolescence. — W 
Old Age f — How to be always Young. — Diseases which 
are attended with a Loss of the Power of Attention and 
Memory. 

Tj! VERY TART of the body has correspondence 
J with the spiritual nature of man, and is the 
ultimate expression of some mental faculty, from 
which it exists and derives its stimulus, or the force 
that enables it to accomplish its appropriate i*se in 
the animal economy. The stomach performs an im- 
portant function in the vital machinery, answering 
to certain mental powers and processes. In it, the 
food we eat undergoes a chemical change to fit it to be 



THE MENTAL-CURB. 121 

appropriated by the various organs, and its nutritive 
elements to be assimilated into the several tissues. 
When it performs its functions faithfully, the body is 
kept in a healthful condition, and the proper balance 
is maintained. When in an abnormal state, it affects 
every other organ, and the body becomes unfitted 
for the uses of the mind. The process of digestion, 
or the reduction of the food to a substance contain- 
ing the elements of the blood, is a triple one. The 
aliment is first received by the mouth, where it is 
masticated and mixed with the secretion from the 
salivary glands, which seems to be a preparatory pro- 
cess without which digestion is imperfect. The 
saliva is slightly alkaline, and has the power of 
changing the amylaceous or starchy elements of the 
food into grape sugar, and sugar into lactic acid. 
This is the commencement of the digestive process. 
By the act of deglutition or swallowing, it then 
passes into the first stomach, where it is agitated by 
a vermicular movement of the organ and is subjected 
to the action of a peculiar solvent called the gastric 
juice. Here it is reduced to a uniform pulpy mass 
denominated chyme. It then passes through the 
pyloric orifice on the right side into the duodenum 
or second stomach. Here the contents of the gall 
cist are emptied into it, and also the pancreatic juice 



122 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

which contains some important vital or nerve stimu- 
lus. It is now reduced to a milky substance called 
chyle, which only awaits the change effected in it by 
the lungs to transform it into arterial blood. After 
leaving the duodenum, it enters the intestinal canal, 
some twenty feet in length, which is lined by the 
mesenteric glands that drink it up and it is conveyed 
into the subclavian vein, whence it passes to the heart 
and lungs. It receives the influx of spiritual life by 
the action of the pulmonary organs. If these pro- 
cesses have been complete, it becomes healthful blood, 
from which every organ selects what it needs for its 
nutrition. Such is a brief account of the important 
process of digestion, so needful to the normal func- 
tional activity ofthe various members and organs of 
the body. 

But we are to bear in mind that everything in the 
external organism has correspondence with and a 
vital relation to some part of the spiritual nature, on 
which its existence and power to act depends. " The 
body without the spirit is dead." All its^ vital pro- 
cesses have a mental origin. The stomach and its 
use in the animal economy have a spiritual corres- 
pondence and significance. But what is there in the 
mental organism answering to it as cause to an ef- 
fect ? The memory performs an office in the interior 



TIIE MENTAL-CURE, x 123 

man analogous to that of the stomach in the outward 
bodily structure. It is the first receptacle of all 
knowledges — a word we use in the plural as well as 
singular form, after the example of Lord Bacon. It 
is the only entrance into the mind of truths from 
without, and is as the courtyard and portico of a 
house. Through it all those truths which we receive 
by instruction and reading, and which are our spirit- 
ual food and drink, enter into the interior man, where 
they are appropriated and serve to nourish the hidden 
life. Thus in its spiritual use the memory answers 
to the stomach. The one acts on a spiritual, and 
the other on a material plane. Genuine truth is the 
proper nutriment of the mind. Sometimes the recep- 
tion and appropriation of a new truth by a patient 
excites his whole being, mental and physical, to a 
higher and healthier activity. The addition of a few 
new ideas have a hygienic and therapeutic influence 
far beyond that of the most potent drug. The gate- 
way over the entrance to the famous Alexandrian 
library bore the expressive inscription, " Medicine for 
the Mind." "And certainly many books," remarks 
Mr. Alger, deserve to be so characterized. Many a 
mind has found books charged with sanative influ- 
ences. Their contents have proved a spell to release 
the spirit from the brood and harassment of its cares, 



124 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

to allay its heat, lessen the throbbing speed of its 
emotions, cheer its depression, counteract its delu- 
sions, distil blessed anodynes into its hurts, and feed 
its exhausted energy with restoratives." But truths 
received by influx from the spiritual realm, and from 
angelic mind, need not, like those from books and 
tutors, pass through a process of mental digestion. 
They enter at once into our life, like the infusion 
of a healthy arterial blood from one person into 
another. 

We have noticed a fact generally overlooked, that 
there arc two stomachs. Answering to this, there 
are two memories, an external one that receives and 
retains simple facts or the record of things done, and 
an internal one which contains the registry of the 
ends, motives, or loves from which we act. The one 
is the recollection, or at least, the record, of truths 
received, the other of the loves from which all thought 
and external activity proceed. The latter or interior 
memory is the mysterious book of our life, for every 
thing which a man ever did, thought, spoke, or felt, 
and all that he has heard and seen, is indelibly in- 
scribed upon this imperishable tablet, and may become 
perceptible to angelic intuitions. For every thing 
proceeding from the love is a manifestation of the life 
o( man, and is inscribed upon his inmost being, and 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 125 

must be as lasting as the life itself. Thus our inward 
history is written in a book more durable than the 
Ararat or the Andes. Before a truth can nourish our 
spiritual life, and minister to the growth of the mind, 
it must not only be intellectually received, but em- 
braced by the affections. This is as necessary as that 
food should undergo the second part of the digestive 
process, before it is fitted to be appropriated into the 
organic structure. The distinction of memory into 
external and internal, is not common in systems of 
mental science, where its dual functions are generally 
overlooked, but it is based upon the nature of the 
mind, and imaged and echoed in the bodily organism. 
The correspondence of the stomach and the mem- 
ory is recognized unconsciously by certain forms of 
speech in common use. There lies hidden in the 
words that men instinctively use much genuine phi- 
losophy. Many intuitive truths are seen here strug- 
gling for utterance and desiring recognition. The 
word digestion comes from the Latin dis and gero, 
the supine of which is geshtm, and signifies both to 
distribute, to reduce to order, as a digest of statute or 
common law, and also to dissolve. And we are urged 
sometimes to mark and inwardly digest certain truths, 
as a homily or discourse. Truths received into the 
external memory are digested when they are reduced 



126 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

to order, embraced by the love, and appropriated by 
the mind as principles of life. Then they contribute 
to the nourishment and real growth of the mind, 
just as healthful food, when dissolved in the stomach 
and fitted to be taken up by the lacteals, furnishes 
the elements necessary to repair the waste of the tis- 
sues and to supply the materials of growth. And we 
firmly believe that a healthy mental nourishment and 
consequent progress, is essential to the vigorous 
functional activity of the digestive apparatus. But 
we are to avoid overeating and cramming, in the 
mind as well as the body. Intervals must be given 
between the introduction of great truths to afford 
time for rumination, which is a spiritual chewing the 
cud. One great and living verity will afford nutri- 
ment for a week or a month sometimes. If there 
be a real connection between a healthy mental prog- 
ress and a vigorous digestion, it may be asked, 
why it is that literary men have weak stomachs ? The 
shortest way to explain this, would be to deny the 
fact. When it is demonstrated to be a truth, we 
will take the time to show the cause. We challenge 
the world to prove that there is any necessary con- 
nection between literary labor and dyspepsia. One 
thing we know, that the period of life when the mem- 
ory is usually the most active and tenacious of truth 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 127 

is that of youth. Then also the digestive organs 
are the most vigorous. And we have had occasion 
to observe many times in our dyspeptic patients, that 
there was a loss of power in the memory. There was 
at the same time a mental and bodily indigestion, 
and there is here the relation of cause and effect, 
but which is antecedent and which posterior we leave 
every one. to decide for himself. Youth is more a 
mental state than a condition of the body. Adoles- 
cence, a term used to denote this stage of human life, 
(from the Latin verb adoksco, to grow), may be pred- 
icated of the inner man as well as of the outward 
form. And youth is really a state of mental and 
spiritual growth, resulting from the desire of know- 
ing and becoming wise, and lasts as long as that 
progression continues, and ever ultimates itself m 
the bodily organism. For a proper exercise and 
vigor of the mental powers is necessary to the most 
healthful state of the outward man. It is only 
when a state of spiritual adolescence ceases, that 
we begin to grow old. But the Creator mani- 
festly designed that the youthful condition of the 
interior man should never end, in this world or the 
next. It is well known that a tree never ceases to 
grow while its life continues. Every new leaf and 
twig it puts forth furnishes it with the means of 



128 



THE MENTAL-CUKE. 



future enlargement. Thus the Washingtonia Gigan- 
tea of California, though it has continued for more 
than twenty centuries, leaves the record of its year- 
ly growth in a new layer of woody fiber added to its 
circumference. Thus man should grow spiritually 
by adding some new truth every day to the sum of 
his knowledge, and applying it to the practical 
uses and charities of life. The first few years of our 
existence is not the only time to do this; but every 
age is the appropriate period for storing the mind 
w T ith living verities. However old we are, however 
numerous are the days of the years of our earthly 
pilgrimage, we are only in the infancy and formative 
stage of our being. Our earth-life in its whole dura • 
tion is the seed-time. The future harvests the germs 
our hands have sown. Life is probationary, and 
always will be so, that is, our present state is the 
chrysalis to be unfolded into our future condition. 
Every subsequent state will be born from the present, 
and the morning of every new day w T ill issue from the 
womb of the preceding evening. Thus through the 
endless cycles of the eternal future, life will be a suc- 
cession of seed-time and harvest, sowing and reaping, 
evening and morning. The coining age, however 
far off, has its roots deep-set in the present. Every 
passing moment contains in its bosom, if we but fully 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 129 

understood its influence and import, an unerring 
prophecy of what the next shall be. Perpetual prog- 
ress is the law and normal condition of all created 
mind. Without this perpetual development of our 
mental powers, there can be no perfect health of 
spirit or body. 

It is proper to remark that memory is a general 
property of the mind, and belongs to all the faculties, 
intellectual and affectional. Each cerebral organ or 
instrument retains, and, under certain conditions, re- 
produces the impressions made upon it. A loss of 
this property of our spiritual organism, indicates a 
want of tone and vigor in the mind. And this tor- 
pidity of the mind enfeebles the action of the organs 
concerned in the digestive process. And there can 
be no healthful vigor of the mental powers, without 
that intellectual progress which we have character- 
ized as perpetual youth. The confirmed dyspeptic 
is prematurely old, and exhibits all the signs of se- 
nility. There is no hope for him, until his affectional 
and intellectual nature is rejuvenated. If they can 
be restored to the normal youthful state of the inner 
man, and his "youth be renewed as the eagles," and 
this not as a transient, momentary mood, but a con- 
firmed spiritual condition, we will warrant it to cure 
the worst form of indigestion with all its horrors. 



130 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

And such a mental metamorphosis can be effected 
upon the patient in harmony with certain laws which 
we hope to be able to unfold. Persons can be made 
to feel young at the age of threescore years and ten. 
For youth is an affectional and intellectual state that 
ought to be perpetual. It is our normal condition 
in earth and heaven. 

In the remarks made above, it has been stated 
that there is a correspondence between the stomach 
and the memory, or a sympathetic connection between 
the digestive organs and that intellectual faculty. 
They mutually act and react upon each other. But 
memory depends, to a great extent, upon the power 
of directing the mind to a fact or object, so as to gain 
a distinct and full perception of it. It has long ago 
been observed by physiologists, that all those diseases 
which affect the digestive organs, are attended with 
a loss of the power of directing the mind steadily and 
for any length of time in a particular direction, and 
there is consequently a weakened state of the memory. 
This takes place in the earlier stages of all febrile dis- 
eases. It also occurs in persons broken down by in- 
temperance, and in the first approaches of old age. 
It is observed in a remarkable degree in connection 
with all disordered states of the stomach. This shows 
the vital relation between the faculty of memory and 



I THE MENTAL-CURE. 131 

the stomach. The latter receives from the former the 
spiritual stimulus that is necessary to its vigorous and 
healthy action. And an intelligent application of 
the principles of Mental Hygiene will be found a 
far more efficient agency in the cure of all forms of 
dyspepsia, than the administration of drugs and 
medicines. 



132 TITE MENTAL-CURE. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE REFLEX INFLUENCE OF THE STOMACH 
UPON THE MIND. 

Sensitiveness of the Epigastric Nerves. — Seeress of Prevorst. 

— Beading with the Pit of the Stomach. — The interior Es- 
sence of things. — Their Influence. — Psychometry. — Effect 
of Medicines held in the Hand. — Philosophy of Amulets. 

— Action of the hidden Properties of things upon the Re- 
ticular Membranes of the Stomach. — Effect of Food upon 
the Mind. — The Philosophy of Dieting. — Mental Stimu- 
lus necessary to Digestion. — The Condition of the Stomach 
and our Feelings. — Action and Reaction. — The Law of 
Sympathy between us and those in the interior Realm*. — 
Effect of happy Frames of Mind upon the Epigastric Nerves. 

— Mental States attending Various Conditions of the 
Stomach. — Hunger and its Mental Effects. — The States 
of the Stomach and Crime. — Hygienic value of Cheerful- 
ness and other Affectional States. 

THE STOMACH, in consequence of its delicate 
net- work of nerves, supplied from the ganglionic 
system, is one of the most sensitive and easily- 
affected organs of the body. It may with some show 
of propriety be denominated another brain. The 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 133 

more a person's spiritual nature is developed, the 
more susceptible it becomes of impression from the 
semi- spiritual and generally unrecognized proper- 
ties of things. In the Seeress of Prevorst, the phe- 
nomena of whose life have been so accurately and 
scientifically delineated by Dr. Justinus Kerner, we 
have a striking instance of the extreme sensitive- 
ness of the nerve-center in the epigastric region, 
and of the reticular membranes of the digestive or- 
gans. She was able to read writing when laid 
upon the pit of the stomach. In fact she averred 
that she made no use of her brain, but lived 
wholly in the epigastric region. And an old philoso- 
pher gravely and seriously maintained, that the soul 
was located in the pit of the stomach. This is partly 
true and partly false. The mind is there, but it is 
also in every part of the body. In the case of the 
seeress, it is undoubtedly true, that the cerebrum, 
the organ of our voluntary life, was quiescent. But 
the cerebellum, which affords the peculiar brain-stim- 
ulus to all the involuntary vital processes and move- 
ments, was the organ of her thoughts and feelings. 
The nerves of the stomach, in her case, were ex- 
tremely, and perhaps morbidly acute and sensitive. 
But it was only a larger degree of what really exists 
in every human body. It was only the intensity of 



134 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

this property of the epigastric nerves that was pecu- 
liar to her. 

Before speaking of the states of the stomach in 
their influence upon the manifestations of the mind, 
it will be well to observe, that in all material things 
there is a spiritual essence. There is a sort of half 
psychical principle in all the objects around us through 
which mind acts upon them, and they react upon the 
mind. This interior principle is the life of the out- 
ward objects of nature, as is implied in the term essence 
( from the Latin esse, to be), and external things are 
only its manifestation to the sensuous degree of the 
mind. In stones, metals, plants, and animal sub- 
stances, there exist many subtle, but important and 
influential elements and forces, that elude the grasp 
of our ordinary senses, and only become perceptible 
to those whose minds are elevated above the sensuous 
plane to a more interior range of action. These in- 
visible forces act with greater power upon some than 
others, owing to their peculiarly impressive organ- 
ization. But all human bodies are like a delicately 
constructed Eolian harp, moved by the lightest airs 
that blow upon it: and our varying moods and frames 
of mind, our shifting joys and sorrows, and often even 
our volitions, are under the influence of powers to us 
altogether imperceptible, but whose subtle effects we 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 135 

cannot escape. Dr. J. R. Buchanan made the dis- 
covery in 1840, that certain persons possessed so acute 
a sensibility to these invisible effluvia and influences, 
that they were able to distinguish and name the dif- 
ferent metals, and various substances, as sugar, salt, 
pepper, and acids, when inclosed in paper and brought 
in contact with them. Out of a class of one hundred 
and thirty students at the Eclectic Medical College 
of Cincinnati, forty-three of them signed a statement, 
that when various medicines were enveloped in paper, 
so as to be wholly unknown to them, by holding 
them, for a length of time, in their hands, the peculiar 
effects were produced upon them that would have fol- 
lowed their administration in the ordinary way. 
When an emetic was the subject of experiment, the 
individual was able to avoid vomiting only by remov- 
ing the medicine. There are those so sensitive that 
even the sight of certain drugs affects them. It is on 
this principle that amulets have been worn through 
the whole history of mankind. Their effects are not 
purely imaginary, but upon susceptible persons vitally 
real, though the law that governs their influence has 
but recently been made known to science. There 
are numerous individuals, who would declare, under 
oath if necessary, that a horse-chestnut carried in the 
pocket, is a preventive of piles. We know those who 



136 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

assert, that whenever they lose their precious amulet, 
they experience a recurrence of their hemorrhoidal dif- 
ficulties. If this is a wild fancy, and only acts upon the 
body by the faith of the patient in its potent virtues, 
such a remedy is a medicine not bad to take. Fred- 
erica Hauffe, the Seeress of Prevorst, whose opened 
interior perceptions detected the hidden subtle prop- 
erties of various substances, and their influence upon 
the mind and body, often prescribed the wearing of 
different things as amulets about the person. She 
made much use of laurel leaves, as their effects were 
such as to open more fully her inner vision, and this 
may account for their use in the temples of Delphi 
and of Esculapius. She also found the hazel-nut tree, 
which has long been used among the people for pur- 
poses of divination, to produce a powerful magnetic 
effect. Here is an interesting field for scientific in- 
vestigation. It is to be hoped that some one adapted 
to such inquiries will enter the already opened door, 
and take possession of the long hidden treasure. If 
any one will carefully read the work of the pious and 
amiable physician of Weinsburg, together with Den- 
ton's ' Soul of Things,' he will gain some light upon 
the relation we sustain to external nature, and will 
find in many mysterious frames of mind and states of 
body, the conscious effects of unseen causes. 



THE MENTAL -CURE. 137 

The membranes of the stomach, so highly nervous 
in their structure, are extremely susceptible to the in- 
fluence of the hidden properties of things. Substances 
coming in contact with its reticular membranes, af- 
fect the mind immediately, and long before they have 
been changed by the digestive process. Thus mor- 
phine is no sooner swallowed, than the spiritual es- 
sence it contains affects the mind. The same is true 
of tea, coffee, alchohol, and all other narcotics, and 
in fine, all articles of food and drink. The eating 
of some forbidden fruit by Eve, may be a myth that 
has some scientific mea-ning after all, and may have 
had something to do with her backsliding and men- 
tal deterioration. There are substances, which, 
through the stomach, or rather its nerves, affect the 
manifestation of the amative, or combative, or de- 
structive propensities. Some, as rice, effect the re- 
flective powers, others the powers of volition used in 
muscular movements, others still are anti-spasmodic 
in their effects. It is said of wine that it " maketli 
glad the heart of man." But its exhilarating effects 
are more mental than physical, or rather, it affects 
the body through the mind. There is no doubt that 
the flesh of animals is pervaded to some extent with 
their peculiar spiritual properties. The Ichthyophagi, 
or fish-eaters, were sensual and stupid. The modern 



138 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

Esquimaux are widely different from the rice-eating 
Hindoos. Carnivorous human beings, as well as ani- 
mals, are unlike the herbivorous and graminivorous 
races. It is our conviction that no one can attain to 
a highly spiritual state who makes much use of a 
flesh diet. The state of the stomach, and what we 
place within its sensitive cavity, are not a matter of 
indifference. And yet nothing but the most general 
rules can be given as to the diet of patients. There are 
idiosyncracies, or peculiarities of mental and bodily 
character, that must not be overlooked. That diet 
must be recommended which is adapted to the pecul- 
iarities of the case, and this can properly be done only 
by an intuitive perception of what the person needs, 
and of the adaptedness of certain things to meet 
the special want. The presence of food or medicine 
in the stomach excites or reacts upon the mind, and 
before those substances can be anything more than 
a lifeless, putrifying mass, it must receive the influx 
of those mental states and be animated by them, and 
be prepared to diffuse them with the circulation of 
the new particles through the whole physiological 
domain. Fermentation is not digestion. The gas- 
tric juice of the dead subject in the dissecting-room 
will digest nothing, because the influx of the spirit- 
ual principle has ceased. The living mind has much 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 139 

more to do with the mysterious chemistry of diges- 
tion, than is generally apprehended. All negative 
and depressing mental states, fear, grief, anxiety, 
melancholy, interfere with the healthful action of the 
digestive organs, while persons of a prevailing mirth- 
ful disposition, are seldom found in the number of 
dyspeptic patients. 

We sustain a living connection with the spiritual 
world, and the men and women who have gone to 
inhabit it, and certain states of the stomach render us 
peculiarly receptive of influences from that realm of 
being. They constitute a plane in.to which influx 
naturally descends, and a form or attitude of the out- 
ward man that attracts the feelings of which they are 
the physiological manifestation — a law we shall more 
fully explain hereafter. Every abnormal state of 
mind, by an invariable law of our being, constitutes 
a bond of sympathetic and living connection with 
similarly diseased mind in the interior world. A 
stomach overloaded, and holding an indigested and 
putrifying mass, affects the diaphragm by drawing 
away from it its nervous force and thus destroying 
its contractility. The diaphragm losing its convex- 
ity, or falling down, the lungs are not emptied in 
expiration, and the chest feels oppressed and heavy 
as well as the mind. But this is a physiological 



140 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

expression of the sentiment of fear, of which anxiety 
and melancholy are modifications, and consequently 
those feelings flow into this receptive form and aggra- 
vate the pathological state that already exists. For 
between the inner and outer man, there operates the 
law of action and reaction. A distinguished seer 
and philosopher has said, "When anxieties occupy 
the mind, the region about the stomach is tightly 
bound and sometimes pain is perceived there, also 
anxieties appear to arise thence; and hence also 
when a man is no longer solicitous about the future, 
or when all things go well with him, so that he is no 
onger afraid of any misfortune, the region about the 
stomach is free and expanded, and he experiences 
delight." A happy state of mind, as every one 
knows, occasions a pleasant thrill in the epigastric 
nerves Ask any man you meet, where he feels hap- 
py, and in ninety -nine cases out of a hundred he will 
put his hand over the region of the stomach, suppos- 
ing perhaps that he is putting it on his heart. Ask 
a child the same question, and he will give the same 
answer. It is, in fact, the seat of our pleasant emo- 
tions, or the point where, more than in any other, 
they ultimate themselves in the body. But unless 
this region is kept in a condition to receive the influx 
of such feelings, it becomes admissive only of the 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 141 

opposite, which arise from beneath, like vapors from 
the sulphurous waters of an extinct volcano. 

When the mucous surface of the digestive appara- 
tus is inflamed and dry, it is attended with an irrita- 
ble, impatient, excited, and hurried state of feeling. 
This hurry of spirits, so common in most chronic dis- 
eases, especially those of a nervous character, has its 
seat in the brain in or near the organ of individuality. 
And magnetism applied here affects the stomach. 
To induce upon ourselves the opposite state of feel- 
ing, as an habitual spiritual condition, will cure the 
disease. The cravings of hunger create a temporary 
inflammation of the kind just mentioned. And every 
one must have observed both in himself and others, 
that when feeling the demands of appetite, he is 
more impatient and irritable. Animals of prey are 
also more fierce when their stomachs are empty, and 
they feel the pangs of hunger. It is not unreasonable 
to suppose, that many crimes, especially those of vio- 
lence and assault, which constitute a large fraction 
of those before our police courts, find here their 
secret spring. It is a disease of mind and body, and 
the unfortunate beings should be sent to the hospi- 
tal, rather than to prison, or rather, our penitentiaries 
should be turned into hospitals for the souls of men. 
No dynasty in France could stand a week against the 



142 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

furious hunger of the Parisian masses. This the 
reigning powers have long known, learning the les- 
son from Roman history, and have always aimed to 
regulate the price of breadstuff's, so as to bring the 
necessaries of life within the reach of all. Inflamed 
stomachs and violence in the social body go together. 
Hunger, by the heat it occasions in the mucous sur- 
face, excites both combativeness and destructiveness — 
a hint it would be well for that respectable, imper- 
sonal, and collective man we call society, to heed. 
A congested, heated state of the mucous membrane 
of the stomach, and impatience, irritability of temper, 
an instinctive tendency to attack, and to destroy, 
and a headlong hurry to do something, no matter 
what, are not accidental coincidences, but are cause 
and effect. One is action and the other reaction, one 
prior and the other posterior. There is here the 
relation of cause and effect, but an effect may become 
in turn a reactionary cause. He who adopts the 
principle as an axiomatic truth, that all causes are 
spiritual, will not hesitate in deciding which is prior 
and which is a sequence. Of one thing we may be 
assured, that the opposite state of the affections, one 
of calmness, patience, loving gentleness, cheerful 
contentment, and an innocent mirthfulness that leaves 
no regret to cast a gloom over its spiritual sunshine, 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 143 

will avail more in the cure of this, form of dyspepsia. 
than all the drugs, pills, powders, and potions, that 
would be necessary to fill the gulf of Mexico. We 
have seen that all diseased conditions connect us 
with disordered and unhappy mind in the other world. 
To cure disease is to "cast out devils" or to break our 
sympathetic consociation with undeveloped spirits. 
But the demons that revel in the emanations of a 
diseased stomach, like vultures in the odor of a dead 
and decaying buffalo, will fly at the approach, or the 
return to the patient, of the playful innocence of re- 
stored childhood and youth. He who is so benevo- 
lently happy, that he longs to share his bliss with the 
whole realm of created mind, can put them to rout 
like the sword of Michael in the battle of the angels, 
that felled squadrons at a blow. An undeveloped 
spirit will fly from the loving joyfulness of the soul, 
like a bird of night from the light of the sun, or 
will quietly and harmlessly stay to warm himself in 
its heavenly radiance. 



144 THE MENTAL-CURE. 



CHAPTER XV. 

EXCRETIONS OF THE BODY AND THE MIND, AND 
THEIR RELATION. 

The Excreting Organs and their Use. — Their irregular 
Action a fruitful Source of Disease. — Influence of the 
Mind upon them. — The Lower Intestine and the Brain. — 
Influence of certain Mental States vtpon it. — Diseases of 
the Rectum and their Mental Cause. — How Cured. — 
Office of the Liver. — Chemical Nature of the Bdc. — Sym- 
pathy between the Liver and Kidneys Its Connection 

with the Brain. — Correspondence with the Mind. — Influ- 
ence of Conscience upon the Hepatic Functions. — State of 
the Mind in Duodenitis. — The Cure. — Melancholy and 
the Liver. — Elimination of the effete Products of the Mind. 

— Mental Influence up> on the Renal Functions. — Diabetes. 

— The Connection of the Kidneys with the Brain. — Caus- 
ality. — Excretory Action of the Intellect. — Renewal of the 
Spirit. — Perpetual Progress. 

THERE ARE several organs whose physiological 
use is to separate from the blood the worn out, 
broken down, and devitalized particles, which can be 
of no further use in the system, and whose continuance 
there is positively injurious to the vital functions. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 145 

If left to accumulate, the body becomes so far dead, 
as those corpuscles are no longer capable of receiv- 
ing and retaining the influx of vital force from the 
animating spirit. Their connection and correspond- 
ence with the soul-principle is already sundered. 
The healthful state of the general system requires 
that they should be expelled from it, and their place 
snpplied by new particles. A great proportion of 
the diseases, for which the medical profession are 
called upon to prescribe, can be traced, in their sec- 
ondary causes, to a want of proper action in the ex- 
cretory organs, whose duty it is to throw off the effete 
and poisonous matter. A scrofulous diathesis or dis- 
position, which is the root of numerous acute and 
chronic ailments, is nothing but an imperfect action 
of the excreting organs, which are five in number, — 
the liver, the kidneys, the lungs, the perspiratory 
glands of the skin, and the large intestine or colon. 
If any one or all these discharge their functions im- 
perfectly, disease, and finally death, is the result. 
The dead and the living atoms cannot mingle in har- 
monious fellowship. One or the other must be pre- 
dominant. The devitalized particles must be elimin- 
ated before the new and vital corpuscles can take 
their place. There are diseased conditions where the 
accumulation of effete matter gradually increases, 



146 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

and a person dies, atom after atom, until all vital 
action ceases. 

It is to be remembered that- every physiological 
process is but a correspondence or effect of some psy- 
chological action. The latter is prior, and the former 
is an established sequence. And if that mental state 
which sustains a causal relation to the healthy tone 
of the excreting organs can be discovered, and is ca- 
pable of being induced upon a patient, it will be of 
more value in the healing art than all the drugs and 
patent nostrums in the universe. Can we discern the 
connection of the spirit's movements with these or- 
gans ? It is well known that grief induces an inflamed 
condition of the intestinal canal. A fit of weeping is 
followed by thirst, which is only the system calling 
for water to quench the inward fire. A constipated 
condition of the bowels is a universal accompaniment 
of insanity and of most melancholic patients, while 
an over-excitement of the intellectual powers pro- 
duces the opposite pathological result. Some of the 
most vigorous thinkers whom we have known were 
invariably attacked with diarrhea after a lecture or 
sermon. These phenomena are sufficient to establish 
a sympathetic connection between the states of the 
mind and the physiological action of the lower intes- 
tine. A despairing habit of mind, and a tendency 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 147 

to forebode evil, will generate a weakened action of 
the bowels, while the opposite mental state will give 
to them a healthful vigor and tone. The bowels re- 
ceive their cerebral stimulus from a part of the brain 
situated between hope and veneration. And in con- 
stipation, when long continued, we have often observ- 
ed a congested and inflamed state of this portion of 
the brain. An abnormal or inverted action of hope 
is communicated to the part of the cerebrum adjacent 
to it, from which the bowels derive their power to 
act. By magnetic manipulations of this point of the 
brain, removing the unnatural heat, and stimulating 
the organ of hope to a boundless faith in the "good 
time coming," and thus infusing a healthy mental 
stimulus into the bowels, will produce all the good 
effects, with none of the evil reactive results, of ca- 
thartic medicines. Such drugs, through the spiritual 
essence they contain, act upon the mind and this part 
of the brain. A very moderate dose of rhubarb will 
sometimes lift the mountain of despair temporarily 
from the most gloomy patient. But this can be done 
more effectually and permanently by a psychological 
influence intelligently applied. All diseases having 
a mental origin, require spiritual remedies. 

There are certain affections and painful derange- 
ments of the rectum, that indicate the connection 



148 . THE MENTAL-CURE. 

between certain abnormal conditions of the body and 
their accompanying disordered mental action. Among 
these are hemorrhoids, sometimes ultimating in an 
ulcerous condition of the rectum. We have had oc- 
casion to observe many times, that this troublesome 
and painful affection is attended with great irritability 
of temper and impatience, and there is always in this 
disease a tendency to that spiritual state. Let us 
see if we can trace any necessary connection between 
such a mental state and the disease under considera- 
tion. Is there here the relation of cause and effect ? 
In this disease there is always an abnormal state of 
the liver. Impatience, irritability, and fretfulness 
exhibit a morbid excitability of what is called com- 
bativeness. Now the liver receives its nerve-stimulus 
from a part of the brain between combativeness and 
caution. There is often a severe pain here in the 
headache occasioned by a derangement of the hepatic 
functions. The excited state of the so-called organ 
of combativeness robs the point of the cerebrum, 
with which the liver is in sympathetical connection, 
of its vital force. When the patient is irritable or 
fretful, opposed to everything, and contented with 
nothing, the organ in the brain, through which these 
feelings are manifested, draws into itself the nerve- 
life from the adjacent parts of the brain that supply 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 149 

the peculiar force necessary to the healthy action of 
the liver. Thus our pettishness and peevishness rob 
the liver of its vital power, and this occasions our 
hemorrhoidal troubles. 

To cure this painful complaint, the patient's atten- 
tion should be directed to the spiritual cause. The 
root of the trouble should be shown him, and he 
should induce upon himself the opposite mental state. 
If one would be his own physician, and cure himself, 
let him lay aside all nostrums — which only aggravate 
the trouble in their final results — and attend to his 
feelings. The cause being removed, the effect will 
cease. If he has not sufficient mental control to do 
this, he should permit the magnetic or psychological 
healer to induce upon him a calm, gentle, and patient 
frame, and to convert his soul to a meek and quiet 
spirit. 

The office of the hepatic apparatus is to separate 
from the blood a certain portion of the waste, worn out 
particles, which are collected into the gall-cist, from 
which they are emptied into the contents of the duode- 
num or second stomach* All that can be worked over 
into healthy blood passes with the chyle into the gen- 
eral circulation. The remainder is ejected from the 
system with the excrementitious matter of the rectum. 
The bile is alkaline in its chemical nature, while the 



150 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

urinary secretion contains an acid principle. As 
there is an affinity between an acid and an alkali, so 
there is a sympathetic connection between the liver 
and kidneys, and both are usually diseased together. 
The careful student of human nature will not fail to 
observe, that the organs are connected in pairs in the 
discharge of their functions. We have already spo- 
ken of the heart and kings, and shown the dual 
nature of the brain. The liver and kidneys act in 
concert. The same is true of the spleen and pancreas. 
As the mind is composed of the two distinct depart- 
ments of the love, or affectional nature, and the intel- 
lect, so the organs of the body receive the influx of 
spiritual life from the one or the other. The liver 
corresponds to the emotions or feelings, and the 
kidneys are influenced indirectly by these or through 
the intellectual principle. As every affection has its 
correspondent or harmonious mode of thinking or in- 
tellection, so the action of the liver is attended with 
an answering or echoing movement of the kidneys. If 
the one is torpid, the other is inactive. The mental 
states that influence the one, act upon the other. 
This concordant movement of the two organs deserves 
to be noted, as it is certain that every morbid spirit- 
ual state that occasions a deranged action of the 
hepatic functions will indirectly affect the renal action. 



THE MENTAL-CORE. 151 

As an evidence that the states of the mind affect the 
chemical action of the excreting organs, we have the 
demonstrated fact, that the effete products separated 
from the blood by the kidneys vary in character with 
the amount of cerebral action. Excessive activity of 
the mind is uniformly accompanied by the excretion 
of an unusual quantity of the alkaline phosphates. 
All abnormal nervous excitement produces the same 
effect, rapidly using up the element of phosphoric 
acid in the brain. Every one must have noticed the 
* peculiar odor of the insane," implying certain mor- 
bid products in the perspiration, and showing the 
influence of unsound mental conditions upon the ac- 
tion of the perspiratory glands. ISTo organ can, 
in a healthy manner, perform its appointed use in 
the human body, unless it is preceded by an equally 
normal state of the part of our mental nature to 
which it belongs and of which it is the external 
manifestation. The office of the excretory organs 
is to throw off the worn out material, preparatory 
to the introduction of new particles, so that the body 
is actually renewed many times during our earthly 
existence. But the mind should also be renewed. 
The idea of spiritual renovation is no modern dis- 
covery. Paul even speaks of the inward man being 
renewed day by day, and enjoins upon us the duty 



152 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

of putting off the old man, or our worn out states, 
and of being renewed in the spirit of our minds, 
or our affectional nature and its emotions. There 
are faculties of the mind whose office is excretory. 
It is the office of what men call conscience to give 
us an instinctive perception of what is good and 
evil, and to influence us to receive the one and reject 
the other. By good we mean that which affords us 
delight, and by evil that which is undelightful. We 
have nothing to do with that which bears these names 
in the current theologies. Every healthy mind pos- 
sesses in itself, and as a part of its organism, an intui- 
tive perception of what is needed for its happiness, 
and an instinctive repugnance to what seems unde- 
lightful. Call it by what name you will, — intuition, 
perception, an internal dictate, or conscience, — in the 
spiritual nature it performs an office similar to the 
hepatic functions in the bodily organism. It rejects 
what it deems evil, and incites to what seems to us 
our good. That the correspondence of the liver and 
conscience is not imaginary, nor merely the expression 
of analogy in their action and use, but is vitally and 
sympathetically real, is made manifest from this — that 
in certain derangements of the liver we often witness 
a similar abnormal state of the faculty of conscience. 
It is sometimes morbidly sensitive, at other times it 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 153 

may be torpid and indifferent to good or evil. Its or- 
gan in the brain is also affected with inflammation and 
congestion. The unhappy patient suffers a constant 
sense of self-imposed condemnation. He imagines 
that the theological scare-crows, hung up by the pul- 
pit, are, in his case at least, living realities, that he is 
the most wicked of men, has blasphemed the Holy 
Ghost, committed the sin unto death, is obnoxious to 
the wrath of God, and is guilty of all manner of im- 
aginary evil. Such persons suffer untold misery, 
seeming often to their friends as unnecessary, from 
the diseased sensitiveness of the conscience, and are 
overwhelmed with a sense of guilt, though the outward 
life is not disorderly. We have noticed this state of 
mind to underlie that worst form of dyspepsia known 
as duodenitis, which involves a too sensitive state of 
the mucous surface of th e duodenum, and a derange- 
ment of the biliary secretion. And we have known 
the whole disorder of body and mind to be removed, in 
an exceedingly brief time, under a judicious magnetic 
treatment. Every observing physician will have 
frequent opportunity of witnessing this state of body 
and mind, and of testing the correctness of the the- 
ory. And he will find that the shortest way to a cure 
of the body is by relieving the mind of the patient 
irom this morbid action. The soul must be delivered 



154 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

from the "body of this death, " before any remedial 
agents in the form of medicines will be of any avail. 
If this be done by his own psychological influence in 
his office, or at the anxious seat by the prayers of 
those who feel called to save "immortal and never- 
dying souls," which is only the influence of happier 
minds upon the sufferer, it matters not, if it only be 
well and effectually done. 

An habitually gloomy state of mind, and dejection 
of spirits, which is, as Cullen observes, a partial in- 
sanity, has received the expressive name of melan- 
choly, from two Greek words, signifying black bile. 
Such a state of mind was intuitively perceived to be 
connected with a diseased liver. But what is melan- 
choly but a clinging to old and worn out enjoyments, 
that now belong to the past? The melancholic 
patient, instead of finding his happiness in the living 
present, tries to feed his hungry affections with the 
memory of dead joys. A state of mind that sees in 
the divine arrangements of the present moment, all 
that is necessary to constitute our highest good, and 
turns no longing look to the past, nor anxious gaze 
into the unknown future, is one that assures a heal- 
thy activity of the liver. Old enjoyments and worn 
out delights, that have subserved their use, should be 
cast off, to make way for new and more vital picas- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 155 

ures. "Very often," remarks a writer in the Chris- 
tian Examiner, "the cause of mental disease is an 
abnormal adhesiveness of certain states, an involun- 
tary pertinacious retention of the effete products 
of the spirit. Dreams, superstitions, imaginary con- 
ceptions, differentiated and offcast acts, old emotions, 
the clogged-up perspirations of sentiment, — the 
excrementitious stuff of the mind — .which should be 
regularly deported by the active excretories of 
thought and feeling, are sometimes unduly detained 
in consciousness, producing anxiety, fastening atten- 
tion, and resulting in the most deadly disturbances 
of mental equilibrium and health. In the subjects 
of excessive melancholy, how often old joys, to be 
known now no more, and which should therefore be 
cheerfully dismissed, with sickly persistence float back 
over the memory in strains of elysian sadness to break 
the heart!" It is precisely this state of the inner 
man and the interior life, that lies at the bottom of 
most forms of liver disease. And the best medicine 
for the patient is some new and living enjoyments. 
This will operate as a specific upon the biliary secre- 
tion, and obviate the use of all mercurial prepara- 
tions. Magnetize the patient into the supreme bliss of 
the present moment, so that he shall feel that he has 
found the summum lonum, and need no longer to 



156 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

search for it among the decaying relics of the past, 
and you have loosened, at once, the grasp of the 
disease. 

The corresponding state of the intellectual princi- 
ple, the same ideas being retained in the thoughts, 
the brooding perpetually over old troubles and old 
delights, occasions a diseased action of the kidneys. 
In many nervous derangements, as they are falsely 
called, there is a tendency to frequent urination, the 
discharge being small in quantity sometimes and 
highly colored, as if the kidneys were trying to do 
the work of the liver, but usually the discharge is 
limpid as pure water. This is occasioned by the per- 
petual thinking of the patients. He sits for hours 
like a marble statue, his mind moving in the same 
old channels of thought, and his breathing in these 
morbid reveries almost imperceptible. It is the office 
of the lungs, as an excreting organ, to eliminate the 
worn out hydrogen and carbon of the blood. It com- 
bines with the oxygen of the air and forms the watery 
vapor that goes forth with the breath. This in 
twenty-four hours amounts to no inconsiderable 
quantity, if it could all be condensed and preserved. 
In the patient's state of perpetual thinking, the lungs 
perform this office only to a limited extent, and their 
work is thrown upon the kidneys. Hence the in- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 157 

creased watery and saccharine excretion of those 
organs. Sugar contains the elements of water, oxy- 
gen and hydrogen, and also carbon,, combined in 
definite proportions. This should pass off from the 
body through the lungs, and not through the kid- 
neys. To change the fixed habit of thinking, and 
educate the respiration of the patient, is the lnosfeffi- 
cient remedy for diabetes and other kidney diseases, 
which are confessedly difficult to manage by the 
ordinary systems of medication. 

The kidneys were supposed by the ancients to be 
the seat of the intelligence. This arose from a vague 
apprehension of their correspondence with the intel- 
lectual principle. The heart was thought to be the 
seat of the affections, and the reins of the reason. 
And it is an interesting fact in this connection, that 
the part of the brain whence they receive their cere- 
bral stimulus, is situated on each side of the organ of 
causality. In their diseased condition, attended also 
with a morbid state of the liver, there is often felt 
a severe pain, commencing here and apparently 
extending through to the opposite pole between com- 
bativeness and caution. The kidneys correspond in 
their use in the outer man, to the judgment or rea- 
son in the mental economy. They separate from the 
blood the uric acid, which if allowed to remain 



158 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

would poison and pollute the life of the body. This 
acid is an expressive symbol of devitalized truths, 
and truth without vitality is falsity. Acids are 
usually generated by certain putrefactive processes 
and fermentations. And the secretion of this waste 
and worn out material by the kidneys, and its elimi- 
nation from the organism through the bladder and 
ureters, answers to the function of the judgment or 
the reason in the soul-principle. The Greek word 
which is usually translated by the English term judg- 
ment, primarily signifies to separate, and to reject. 
The reason is that faculty of mind by which we dis- 
tinguish truth from falsity, a living verity from a de- 
vitalized notion, and separate the latter from the for- 
mer, or cast away the one to make room for the other. 
There can be no perfect health of mind, nor genuine 
spiritual growth, without this excretory action of the 
intellect. Defunct ideas should be laid aside, stereo- 
typed and fixed modes of thinking exchanged for new 
methods of intellection. Monomania, a form of insan- 
ity not uncommon, is only the fixedness of an idea, 
the petrifaction of a thought, and a calculus or stone 
in the mental bladder. Old and worn out dogmas, 
when they have accomplished their use and lost their 
life, should be rejected, that the intellect may become 
receptive of new and vital truths. The dead past 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 159 

should be decently buried, to make room for a future 
and better generation of youthful and living verities. 
If the excretory organs eject from the system vital 
particles, disease is the result. The new supply does 
not balance the waste, and the bodily tissues are di- 
minished, and their substance impaired. So we should 
be careful lest we too hastily put away the truths of 
a former, dispensation before they have lost their vi- 
tality to us, and ceased to be of any further use, for 
fear that spiritual leanness and mental emaciation 
should result. But our greater danger is found in 
the reluctance with which we part with old and worn 
out truth, and the pertinacious adherence of the mind 
to its fixed modes of thought and feeling. We cling 
to them after we are conscious they are dead, and 
mourn over their loss, like Rachel weeping for her 
children, and refusing to be comforted because they 
are not. Or we are too often like Rizpah, the daugh- 
ter of Aiah, who took the bodies of her seven sons, 
slain in the beginning of the barley-harvest, and, 
spreading sackcloth upon the rock, seated herself 
upon it, and guarded them day and night, lest the 
birds of the air, or the beasts of the field, should con- 
sume them. Thus we cleave to the defunct and de- 
caying truths of a past age and bygone era of human 
development, until their putrid exhalations corrupt 



160 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

the spiritual air we breathe, and poison our intellectual 
life. The prophets and apostles o£the New Age are 
the best physicians for such a scrofulous diathesis of 
the interior man. It is not lifeless mineral or veg- 
etable compounds their case requires, but living ideas, 
that shall act as alteratives in the mental organism, 
changing the fixed direction of their thoughts and 
feelings into other channels, that they may be re- 
newed in the spirit of their minds. 



THE MENTAL-CORE. 161 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE SKIN. ITS CONNECTION WITH THE INTER- 
NAL ORGANS, AND CORRESPONDENCE WITH 
THE MIND. 

Structure and Functions of the Shin. — Amount Secreted by 
it daily. — The Period in which the Body is renewed. — 
The Chemical Laboratory of the System. — Unrecognized 
Sources of Nutrition. — How prolonged Abstinence has 
been sustained. — Effect of Medicines applied to the Skin. 
— Psychological Remedies. — Cellular Tissue. — Mucous 
and Serous Membranes. — The Physiological Conditionin a 
Common Cold. — Tlie Action of the Mind upon the Shin. — 
A Psychological Sweat. — Effect of Sleep. — State of the 
Mind underlying Consumption. — Control over the Action 
of the Skin by the Magnetizer. — Mind the only Causal 
Agent. — The Ablutions of the Jewish and Mohammedan 
Laws. — Spiritual Effects of Bathing. 

THERE 18 no organ of the body more skillfully 
and wonderfully constructed, and whose normal 
action is more necessary to our physical well-being, 
than the skin. The substance of which the various 
tissues are made, are being constantly changed. It 



162 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

has been stated that once in seven years, the whole 
bodily structure is renewed. But there are satisfac- 
tory reasons for believing that complete renovation is 
effected in a much briefer period, perhaps as often as 
once a year, if not once a month. The time neces- 
sary for this change in the organic elements, is that 
which is required for an amount of worn-out material, 
equal to the weight of the body, to pass off through 
the appropriate channels, and an equal amount to be 
received and appropriated. Every day new matter is 
supplied from the food, and particles of every tissue 
are dislodged and carried out of the system by the 
excretory organs, one of the most prominent of which 
is the skin. The waste, worn-out particles pass off 
from the skin invisibly, in the form of insensible per- 
spiration, and visibly, and in appreciable quantities, 
in sensible perspiration or sweat. This useless matter 
is eliminated from the system through what we call 
the pores of the skin, which are crowded together 
upon the entire surface of the body, and are the ter- 
minations of millions of minute spiral tubes, proceed- 
ing from the membranous envelopes of the internal 
organs. They are not more punctures or holes in the 
cuticular covering, but are the outlets of a grand sys- 
tem of drainage, and of pipes conveying nutritious el- 
ements into the body. In this way, and by means of 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 163 

nervous fibers which proceed from the various organs, 
and are spread out into a nexus or network in the 
cutis vera, the skin has connection and communication 
with all the internal organs, and is their ultimation 
or external boundary. These pores or tubes are 
more numerous in some places than in others. There 
are more of them in the palms of the hands than in 
the heel of the foot, there being in the former about 
three thousand five hundred twenty-eight to the square 
inch, and in the latter two thousand two hundred sixty- 
eight. The general average has been estimated in 
Wilson's Anatomy, to be twenty-eight hundred to the 
square inch. The number of square inches of surface 
in a man of medium size, is twenty-five hundred. 
This would give seven millions as the whole number 
of pores. These tubes are estimated to be only one 
fourth of an inch in length, which falls greatly short 
of the truth, but this gives the number of inches of 
perspiratory tube as one million seven hundred fifty thou- 
sand, or nearly twentj'-eight miles. But this is some 
six times too small in relation to the length of each 
tube, and at least five times less than the real number 
of pores to the square inch. If so, there would be 
eight hundred and forty miles of these minute draining 
pipes terminating in the skin. 

Physiologists have computed, that through these 



164 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

channels there are excreted about two and a half 
pounds of waste matter every day, or seventy- five 
pounds a month. A large proportion of this is mere 
watery vapor, but holding in solution minute quanti- 
ties of solid matter, which once composed the mus- 
cles, nerves, and other tissues. If this were left to 
accumulate, it would aggregate in such quantities 
as to interfere with the healthful and vigorous func- 
tional action of all the organs, a-nd fevers and other 
morbid conditions of the system would be the inevi- 
table result. This passes off from the body through 
the skin, and is lodged in the clothing, or surrounds 
us as a sphere or atmosphere of its own exhalations. 
This perspiration is attended with a sensible odor, 
different in various persons, and in the same person 
at different times. To keep these pores open and in 
proper action is as necessary to the health of the in- 
ternal organs as it is to that of the surface. And to 
ascertain what spiritual states and influences affect 
their action, is not merely a matter of curiosity, but 
of practical hygienic value. We shall endeavor to 
show this in as clear a light as we are able. 

The investing membranes are the grand chemical 
laboratory of the living system. The secretory and 
perspiratory glands, and the absorbents, are the appa- 
ratus nature uses in her chemistry of life. The one 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 165 

throws off the diseased and worn-out particles, the 
other imbibes them. We are satisfied "that the 
spring of all nourishment and abundance, whether 
of the inner or outer man, is not to be found where 
we seek it : it lies deep in the spirituality of our na- 
ture, there where no external evils can reach, to trou- 
ble or dry it up." It was the opinion of Paracelsus, 
that man is not only fed through his stomach, but 
through all the membranes of the body by drawing 
in nutriment from the elements surrounding us. We 
drink in life from the viewless air, and from the un- 
seen and all-surrounding spiritual realm. There are 
well-authenticated cases of persons passing long peri- 
ods without food or drink. But undoubtedly the 
spiritual elements or essences, contained in our ordinary 
diet, were received from other sources. Thus man 
may eat angels' food. Elijah in this way passed forty 
days without other nutriment than the spiritual world 
supplied. Thus Moses on the mount, and Jesus in 
the wilderness of Bethsaida, sustained life for more 
than a month without material food. We imbibe 
from the atmosphere much that is essential to life 
and health, not merely through the lungs, but like 
the leaves of plants from the air in contact with us. 
Hence the hygienic value of both the air-bath, and 
the sun-bath, in which the whole surface of the body 



166 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

is exposed to the unobstructed action of the atmos- 
pheric elements and the influence of light. The 
parts of the body least covered by the clothing, are 
always in the healthiest condition. All the internal 
organs may be affected by an application of medi- 
cines and various substances applied to the surface, 
as we have previously shown. And it is better to 
apply medicines here, than to the stomach and intes- 
tinal canal. The latter is the common sewer of the 
body, and is the last place in the world in which to put 
medicinal compounds. We have often known a cloth 
wet in a solution of sulphate of magnesia, to cause a 
movement of the lower intestine, in a costive state of 
the bowels, and that without inflaming the whole ali- 
mentary tube, as when administered through the 
stomach. Any organ may be thus affected, for when 
there is in it a lack of any element, it has a hungry 
affinity for it, and attracts it to itself, when the sub- 
stance containing it is applied to the skin over it. 
Our experiments with medicines thus applied have 
satisfied us that they possess efficiency, without the 
usual morbid results attending their administration 
in the ordinary way. An application of common salt 
to the lumbar plexus, will relieve an inflamed state 
of the kidneys, indicated by an excess of saccharine 
matter in the urine. But an intelligent application 



TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 167 

of spiritual or mental force, may produce all the ef- 
fects that can he produced by medicines. We have 
thrown persons into a gentle perspiration in five min- 
utes, without touching them, and sometimes when 
they were miles away. For let it be remembered that a 
psychological influence can affect the physiological action 
of any organ in the body. But it is in this, as in 
everything else, — knowledge is power. To know 
how to do any thing, is to be able to do it. The laws 
that govern in the production of such results we 
hope to explain hereafter. But what can be done 
by one mind acting upon another mind, and through 
this upon the body, can be effected in a still higher 
degree by angels and spirits. If they can move 
ponderable bodies, as a stone at the entrance of a 
sepulcher, or articles of furniture, or a man's hand, 
and these are established facts of science, and demon- 
strated truths, they can certainly just as well affect 
the physiological activity of any organ in the body, 
by an intelligent employment of spiritual and impon- 
derable forces. We have the means of knowing, or 
at least of believing, that there are associations of 
spirits in the other world, whose use and happiness 
are found in ministering to minds diseased. There 
are many Raphaels, or divine physicians there. And 
the laws that govern the production of healing effects 



168 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

by sanative spiritual influences, are subjects of earn- 
est investigation. Hereafter tbe world will receive 
higher light on this important and interesting sub- 
ject, than has ever dawned upon us from the serene 
and lucid depths of the angelic heaven?. A calm 
clear fight is already breaking in the east. It will 
be seen by coming generations, that all the thera- 
peutic effects that we aim to produce by medicines, 
but often fail in our attempts, can be uuerringly 
caused by psychological forces. The spiritual world 
contains, and perhaps is made up of, the invisible 
essences of material things. All the sanative virtues 
of plants and minerals are to be attributed to the 
spiritual forces of which they are only the ultimate 
expression. It has been established by experiment, 
that pure water, in the hands of a good magnetizer, 
can be made to produce the specific effects of any 
medical preparation. But it is only the action of his 
mind upon it, for our inner being inherits from the 
central Life a sort of creative force. The so-called 
miracle, in Cana, where Jesus made water into wine, 
was performed in harmony with this law; for all 
miracles that are historically true, are only the exhibi- 
tion of higher hws of nature than those men usually 
avail themselves of. If by the employment of un 
recognized spirit forces, such a result was effected in 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 169 

an obscure village of Galilee, cannot spiritual beings 
impart a sanative principle to any thing we take into 
the system, or that comes in contact with us ? And 
cannot the human mind here learn to do it? If the 
account of the pool of Bethesda be accepted as 
literally true, an angel imparted sanative virtues 
to its water, so that whoever stepped in was made 
whole of whatsoever disease he had. (Jno. v. 2 — 9.) 
There is nothing contrary to the known laws of 
nature in this. Facts go to show that the manipula- 
tion of medicines by the physician, and his mental 
states while compounding them, produce psychomet- 
rical effects upon a sensitive patient. 

All chemical changes in the body are effected by 
the action of the cellular tissue, which composes the 
membranes that surround and interpenetrate all the 
organs, and the entire system. These membranes 
are mucous or serous, positive or negative, like the 
copper and zinc in an electro-magnetic battery. All 
positive substances give off a negative magnetism, and 
all negative substances absorb and throw off a posi- 
tive electrical force. Any influence that stimulates 
to excessive action the mucous surfaces of the body, 
throws it into a negative state, and closes the pores 
of the skin. This is the case in a common cold, which 
is only an infant fever. All the mucous membranes 



170 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

or tissues exhibit an increased action, and the serous 
surfaces are correspondent^ inactive and dry. There 
is a loss of vital harmony. Before the pores can be 
opened, and the febrile symptoms relieved, the bodily 
organs must be rendered more positive by an excite- 
ment of the serous membranes. The dryness of the 
surface is only what is seen everywhere in the serous 
tissue of all the organs. The question now arises : 
What spiritual states, or forces, will excite to action 
the appropriate membranes, and increase the serous 
secretions, and open the pores of the skin, and what 
mental states will so act upon the mucous surfaces, as 
to close the mouths of the spiral draining tubes, and 
check or suspend all perspiration ? It is an interest- 
ing fact in this connection, that certain animals never 
sweat, however much they may be heated. This is 
true of the dog, the goat, the cat, and all animals of 
the feline species, and the hog. In the animal races 
that never exhibit any sensible perspiration, we find 
prominently developed some one or more of the 
selfish propensities that have their organs in man in 
the base of the brain. Occasionally a human being is 
found who never exhibits much, if any, sensible per- 
spiration, while others in the same atmosphere, the 
same temperature, and the same employment, may 
appear to have been immersed in water. It seems to 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 171 

be his normal state, a peculiarity of mental and phys- 
ical organization. But it will be found that some 
one or all the organs at the base of the brain are pre- 
dominantly active. To lower the action of these or- 
gans by demagnetizing them, by sending their vital 
force down into corresponding organs of the body, 
or up to the region of the intellectual and spiritual 
faculties, is the modus operandi of giving a patient a 
psychological sweat. The more the mind is elevated 
above the animal and sensuous range of action, the 
more active are the perspiratory glands of the skin. 
In sleep this region of the brain is usually quiescent, 
and an increased perspiration is the result. One of 
the first symptoms exhibited in that exalted state of 
the mind's action characterizing the magnetic coma 
or trance, is the unusual moisture of the hands and 
the surface of the body. In consumption there is in- 
variably exhibited a loss of harmony between the 
intellectual and afYectional departments of the mind, 
the former predominating. They are affectionally 
cold and think more than they feel This predomi- 
nance of the intellectual over the emotional, affects 
the amount of the respiratory action, and also the 
state of the skin. They often exhibit a morbid ten- 
dency to undue perspiration. And they never can be 
relieved of the disease, until the lost harmony of the 



172 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

mind is restored. It is well known that unusual 
muscular exertion induces an increased perspiration, 
and by magnetizing the part of the cerebrum which 
is the organ of all voluntary movements, the same 
effect can be produced upon the perspiratory glands. 
Thus the action of the skin is under the control of 
the intelligent magnetic healer. A certain mental 
force, brought to bear upon some parts of the brain, 
will send a glow of heat over the whole surface of 
the body, producing a transient febrile state. By 
another action of h-is mind and wi-11, he can produce 
almost instantly the opposite physiological condition, 
and throw the patient into a gentle perspiration. 
Are there any drugs that can equal the living force 
of a mind made in the image of God, and which in- 
closes in its hidden depths a germ of the one and 
only Life ? We have known fevers, in their incipient 
stage, to be cured by a psychological force in less 
than five minutes. In one case a person connected 
with the War Department in Washington, was 
thrown into a profuse perspiration, while the oper- 
ator was quietly seated in his library in New Hamp- 
shire. Many facts and testimonials could be given 
to confirm the statements we might make in relation 
to the wonderful effects produced by the simple force 
of the mind. But they would not seem credible to 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 173 

those who do not understand the spiritual laws that 
govern in such cases. We are apt to forget that 
mind is the only causal agent in the universe, and 
that all effects and phenomena in the realm of ma- 
terial things owe their origin to the action of spirit- 
ual forces. The sublime movements of the universe 
are all effects of a divine and self-sustaining force, 
whose name is the I AM, the Living One, and whom 
the philosophic Greeks called Zeus, from a verb 
meaning to live. The whole realm of nature is sub- 
ordinate to spirit, and controlled by it. All physio- 
logical action is only an ultimation of psychological 
forces. All vital movements are a display in the 
realm of organized matter of spiritual dynamics. 
And sufficient hints and glimpses of truth have been 
afforded us in this chapter to warrant the belief, or 
at least, the hope, that the time is coming when all 
cutaneous diseases, and febrile states of the system — 
and their name is legion — will be under the control 
of an intelligent use of the living powers of the hu- 
man spirit. Jesus cured Peter's wife's mother of a 
fever by taking her by the hands, and we have seen 
a person thrown into a healthy perspiration in the 
same way. The arms are the chief instrument of 
muscular motion, and all the voluntary strength of 
the body can be concentrated in them. They have 



174 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

sympathetic connection with the point of the brain 
where muscular force has its seat. And an excite- 
ment of this part of the brain acts upon the perspi- 
ratory glands. 

We have before remarked that our physiological 
and pathological states render us receptive of a corres- 
ponding spiritual influx. The various ablutions of 
the Jewish and Mohammedan laws have not only a 
hygienic value, but a real spiritual use. The wash- 
ing of the body not only purifies the skin, and white- 
washes the outside of the sepulcher, but purifies the 
internal organs, and the spiritual man as well. It is 
a law that the influx of life from the realm of spirit, 
is modified by the quality and condition of the recip- 
ient form. Hence when the body becomes foul by 
the retention of worn-out material, which accumulates 
on the surface and in the interior of the structure, it 
becomes a cage suitable only for the dwelling of un- 
clean birds, and no others will descend and make their 
nest in it. It is a vessel fitted to receive only the 
lower passions and feelings of human nature. Such 
mental states, ultimated in a correspondent bodily 
condition, are the spiritual causes of fevers and many 
loathsome and unclean cutaneous diseases. Exter- 
nal cleanliness is not only next to godliness, but may 
be viewed as a part of it. Public bathing houses are 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 175 

as important a means of grace as our poorly ventila- 
ted churches, and many an unhappy soul would be 
brought nearer to heaven by a judicious application 
of soap and water, than he could be by listening to a 
sermon about things of which he comprehends little 
and cares less. If we purify the external body, it 
prepares a recipient vessel for the influx of pure af- 
fections and of truths in agreement with them. To 
bring the external nature into correspondent harmony 
with the higher and diviner sentiments and powers, 
should be our steady aim. For the soul not only 
acts upon the body, but the latter reacts upon the 
former. 



176 THE MENTAL-CORE. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE SENSES. THEIR CORRESPONDENCE, AND 
INDEPENDENT OR SPIRITUAL ACTION. 

Sensation a Spiritual Phenomenon. — Vision without the ex- 
ternal Eye. — Somnambulism. — Independent Clairvoyance. 
— The Relation of the Eye to the Intellect. — Sympathy of 
the Eye with other Organs. — The Spiritual Eye can discern 
Material Things. — The Sense of Heartng. — The Mental 
Act underlying the Sensation of Sound. — Different Forms 
of Deafness. — How to Treat them. — The Connection of 
Voluntary Hearing with the Organ of Cautiousness. — The 
seat of Otalgia. — Clairaudience or Spiritual Hearing. — 
The sense of Touch. — Its general Diffusion. — Its Relation 
to the Love. — Communication of life by the Hand. — Tlie 
sense of Smell. — Its Spiritual Action. — Taste. — Its Use. 
— Tfie Spiritual Senses. — How they are opened. — Diseased 
Conditions in which the Inner Senses are emancipated. 

IN MOST systems of mental philosophy, the bodily 
senses are stated to be five in number — seeing, 
hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling. Some meta- 
physical writers have added others to the number, as 
the muscular sense, the moral sense, and the esthetic 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 



177 



sense. Others with more reason have reduced them 
to three in number, the sense of smelling and tasting 
being viewed as only modifications of feeling, as they 
are excited by the actual contact of substances with 
their nerve fibers. In fact the sense of feeling may 
be considered as the universal sense underlying the 
action of all the others. And in certain states, as in 
what is called psychometry, the whole body becomes 
an organ of perception, and all the senses are reduced 
to a unity — a spiritual state it is difficult to describe. 
The truth previously demonstrated, that sensation 
is not located in the bodily organism, but in the 
intermediate spiritual form, is one of great scientific 
value. All sensation is a spiritual phenomenon. 
The spiritual senses are not another set of faculties, 
but only our ordinary senses acting independently 
of the bodily organs. It has been demonstrated that 
there is vision, clear and far-reaching, without the use 
of the external eye. In somnambulism this can be 
proved to be the fact. The pupil of the eye is dilat- 
ed to its utmost capacity, and the direct rays of the 
sun, or the powerful calcium light thrown upon it, 
do not cause it to contract in the least. The six 
small muscles that move the eye seem to be tempo- 
rarily paralyzed and motionless. No degree of light 
can be made to affect the lachrymal glands, but the 



178 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

eye is fixed, vacant, and glassy. All this goes to 
show that the optic nerve is destitute of sensibility, 
and the external eye is of no more use than it is 
after death. Yet there is the power to discern ob- 
jects near or remote, with far greater distinctness 
than in the normal state. There are certain persons 
who seem to have unfolded within them the power 
of seeing without the use of the material organ of 
vision. I do not refer to what is usually called clair- 
voyance, which is a much less spiritual state. The 
persons to whom I refer are in their normal state. 
They are not subject to what passes under the name 
of the trance, a magnetic sleep either self-induced 
or imposed upon them by another. They are not 
in a somnambulic state, but in perfect consciousness 
and wakefulness. Yet they see with more or less 
clearness, either with the eye open or shut, in the 
light or in the darkness, hundreds of miles away, so 
that they can describe persons, and even places, with 
great particularity and exactness. They perceive 
the complexion, the form of the countenance, the 
color of the hair, the temperament, and read the 
character, the leading traits of which they give with 
accuracy, though entire strangers to them, and see 
the objects that surround them. This state is far 
higher and more spiritual than ordinary clairvoyance. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 179 

Their inner being has arisen above the limitations of 
time and space, and the bondage to material things, 
and the spiritual man, the interior life, has attained 
to freedom, such as it usually enjoys only after it has 
become divested of the external body. The organs 
of sense, like every thing else in the human body, 
are correspondences, or are effects of which some- 
thing in the spiritual nature is the cause. The eye 
belongs to the intellect, or is an organ through 
which the understanding holds communication with 
the outward world. This is unconsciously recog- 
nized in the language of men. To see a thing and 
to know it, are used interchangeably, as when one 
says, the whole of a thing is greater than any of its 
parts, and you reply, "I see it is so. " We at once 
see the truth of it. But seeing is not knowing, but 
corresponds to it, for we may see an object of which 
we know little or nothing. We see just to the ex- 
tent of our knowledge and no further. A skillful 
botanist sees a thousand times more in a tree than 
one who knows but little of its morphology and 
physiology. In a purely spiritual state and world, 
the more the intellect is developed, the clearer is the 
vision. The relation of the understanding and the 
eye, and the sympathetic connection between them 
may be shown in another way. The eye sometimes 



180 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

silently speaks, and discloses the interior thought, 
which is often quite different from the language of 
the lips. Intelligence beams from the eye. An in- 
tense excitement of the intellect gives an unearthly 
lustre to the eye. The eye is oftentimes affected 
by the diseased condition of those organs that have 
correspondence with the intellectual faculties, as the 
kidneys and the lungs. The condition of the duo- 
denum or second stomach, seems to influence the 
external eye. We have had occasion to notice that 
sore eyes are often accompanied with an inflamed state 
of the mucous surface of the duodenum. In all oph- 
thalmic inflammations, there is found a tender spot 
about half way between the ear and the corner of the 
eye. When the sensitiveness of this part is remov- 
ed, and the congestion relieved by the magnetism 
of the hand, it allays the inflammation of the eye and 
the duodenum at the same time. 

It was remarked by Swedenborg that the natural 
eye sees only material objects, but cannot discern 
spiritual realities. This is undoubtedly correct. But 
when he avers that the spiritual eye takes cognizance 
only of spiritual things, and cannot perceive any ob- 
jects in the material world, we think there is some 
mistake here, cither in him or our understanding of 
him. He himself saw the fire that was raging in 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 181 

Stockholm, when he was in Gottenburg three hnndred 
miles from the former place. He informed his friends 
where it commenced, how far it proceeded, and when 
it was extinguished. All his statements were con- 
firmed two days after by the arrival of a messenger 
at Gottenburg. It is useless to say that this was 
seen by the external, or what he calls the natural 
eye. It was only the inner sense, acting independ- 
ently of the bodily organ, that became cognizant of 
it. Here then is a plain case of the inner eye per- 
ceiving material phenomena. There can be no doubt, 
that while the spiritual world, with its objective real- 
ities, is veiled is darkness to our outward senses, the 
penetrative vision of spirits and angels may perceive 
the objects and persons of this lower or exterior 
range of life. The spiritual may discern the mate- 
rial, the inner take cognizance of the outer, the 
higher of the lower, because this is the divine order, 
but the converse of this is impossible. 

The sense of hearing, as a medium of communica- 
tion between the mind and the external world, stands 
next in importance to that of vision. The ear, in its 
structure, is one of the most complicated and deli- 
cately organized instruments of the soul. As the 
eye corresponds to the intellect, so the ear answers 
to the affectional nature. As the eye is influenced 



182 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

by the states of the intellectual faculties, so the ear 
is affected by the varying states of the love. In the 
bodily organism it belongs to the vital system, as the 
eye does to the pulmonary. Diseases of the involun- 
tary or vital organs affect the ear by sympathy, while 
pulmonary disorders, and an abnormal state of the 
organs having correspondence with the intellect, af- 
fect the eye. Hearing, as a voluntary act, is the re- 
sult of attention and hearkening. They are the 
causes or prior states of the mind, of which hearing 
is the effect. In a state of absent-mindedness or 
mental abstraction, the ear becomes insensible to ex- 
ternal sounds. Ordinary conversation is not noticed. 
A person may be addressed, but he hears nothing un- 
til his attention is excited. The mental act of listen- 
ing, or hearkening, infuses into the auditory nerve a 
spiritual and cerebral stimulus, that increases its 
sensibility and renders it more impressible to the 
undulatory movements of the atmosphere and the 
ether which are necessary to the sensation of hearing. 
In all forms of deafness occasioned by a weakened 
condition of the nerve of hearing, the best remedy 
will be found in the frequent excitement of the men- 
tal state that is a prerequisite to the action of the 
auditory sense. Sometimes the very act of listening 
to hear the ticking of a watch, or some distant sound, 



THE MENTAL-CUEE. 183 

will so affect the organ of hearing that the sensitive- 
ness of the nerve will be restored. In some forms 
of deafness, there seems to be only a loss of the 
power of attention. The cause of the defect in 
the hearing is found in a sort of mental abstraction, 
and when they are temporarily aroused from this intro- 
version of the mind, their power of hearing even ordi- 
nary conversation is restored. We have had under 
our care several cases of this nature. The remark 
is often made of such persons, that they hear with 
distinctness what you do not wish them to hear. 
When their attention is excited, even ordinary con- 
versation becomes audible to them. This indicates 
with clearness that the mind is at fault, more than 
any diseased condition of the organ of hearing. The 
cause of this form of deafness is spiritual, and the 
remedy must be spiritual also. 

There is a sympathetic connection between the 
ear and what is improperly called the organ of cau- 
tiousness. We have reason to suspect that the power 
of listening, or of hearkening, is located in this part 
of the cerebral structure. It will be found to be 
true, that the more fully this part of the brain is 
developed, the more acute is the sense of hearing. 
This is so both in animals and men. In the hare 
the ear, which is of unusual size, is situated in imme- 



184 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

diate connection with the so-called organ of cautious- 
ness, and there is a remarkable power of attention, 
or of concentrating the mental force upon the aud- 
itory sense, and a most acute perception of sounds. 
What is called its timidity, is only this mental trait, 
the unusual activity of the faculty of attention. We 
have demonstrated by experiment, that by magnetiz- 
ing this part of the brain, with an attempt to excite 
the attention, it increases the sensitiveness of the 
ear to sounds. We have come to the conclusion 
that the sense of hearing, so far as it is a voluntary 
act, depends upon this point of the cerebrum for its 
nerve stimulus. But hearing is also involuntary, 
and as an involuntary sense, the ear has sympathetic 
connection with the cerebellum, and by placing the 
hand on a point just below the cerebellum, at the com- 
mencement of the occipital portion of the spinal col- 
umn, and imparting a magnetic force to it, the car 
will be affected. When a person has been deaf of 
one ear for any considerable length of time, there 
will be found a perceptible depression here on one 
side. This we have frequently noticed. 

Deafness is sometimes occasioned by an inflamed 
state of the membrana tympani, a delicate and sensi- 
tive membrane stretched across the ear passage^ 
and designed to protect the inner car from the vio- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 185 

lence of the atmospheric vibrations. The nerve of 
this membrane may be affected by applying the fin- 
ger just behind the zygomatic process of the superior 
maxillary bone, and in front of the ear. Beneath 
this place the nerve enters the ear. Here is the seat 
of the pain in acute otalgia or ear-ache. Deafness 
is sometimes only an inflamed and congested condi- 
tion of the membrana tympani. It becomes positively 
charged with vital force, and is too sensitive, while the 
inner ear is coldly negative. This occasions a con- 
stant roaring or ringing sound, in its earlier stages. 
By cooling the nerve, the difficulty is at once reliev- 
ed. This membrane seems to have a sympathetic 
connection with the organs of tune and time, and 
receives its cerebral stimulus from a point situated 
between them. The sense of hearing may act inde- 
pendently of the external organ. There are those 
who not only see without regard to distance of space 
and without the intervention of ordinary light, but 
also are able to hear without the vibration of the at- 
mosphere. As light is produced by an undulatory 
movement of the ether, so the sensation of hearing 
may depend for its existence upon the motion of a 
still more subtle element denominated the aura. 
Certain it is, that persons many miles away are 
heard distinctly to speak, and even their thoughts 



186 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

become audible. Words, uttered at a distance of 
many leagues, are heard as clearly as if the person 
speaking were in the same room with us. This may 
seem even more marvelous and incredible than the 
interior vision above described. To this inner aud- 
itory sense spirits and angels speak. The Jewish 
prophets listened to voices wafted from the interior 
realms, and in the unruffled stillness of the soul 
received messages from the inhabitants of the other 
shore. Some in every age and nation have enjoyed 
the same privilege. By them the harmonies of the 
upper spheres have been heard through the separat- 
ing vail. One peculiarity of these sounds ought not 
to pass without notice. They do not enter the ear 
by an external way, or through the auditory canal 
(the meatus auditor his externus), but they arise from 
within, and seem to pass up through the Eustachian 
tube. Whether this is real or only a seeming, we are 
unable to say. But the sound is as distinctly heard, 
as any produced by a vibration of the atmosphere, 
collected and thrown upon the membrane of the tym- 
panum. Persons in whom the intellect is exalted 
to a spiritual plane of action, are endowed with 
clear-seeing, because the sight corresponds to the 
understanding. Those in whom the affectional 
nature is elevated to the same degree, so as to be in 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 187 

harmony with the spiritualized intellect, are not only 
clairvoyant, but clairaudient also, because the hear- 
ing corresponds to the love, and is influenced by 
the emotions. 

The sense of touch, or feeling, is not confined to a 
small portion of the body, but is distributed over its 
whole surface. But there are certain parts, as the 
palms of the hand, and the lips, which possess this 
sense in a higher degree, in consequence of numerous 
papilla?, which, in addition to blood-vessels, contain 
nervous loops, and also peculiar ovoid bodies called 
"axile corpuscles, " possessing gray ganglionic vesci- 
cles or cells. The touch or feeling is the sense be- 
longing to the affectional department of the human 
mind. This is tacitly recognized in all languages, 
where we find the word feeling used to express emo- 
tions and desires, which are modifications of the love. 
We speak of feelings of joy, of sorrow, of want, of 
contentment. These are states of the affections. We 
also speak of various painful diseased conditions as 
affections, as a rheumatic, or a neuralgic affection. 
This is an instinctive acknowledgment, that these 
abnormal physiological conditions are caused by a 
disordered or unharmonious state of the affections. 
The sphere of our life and the states of our love, are 
communicable by the touch, especially of the hand. 



188 TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 

This is a truth of great practical importance. To 
those who are peculiarly sensitive to the influence of 
others, and are highly intuitional, the touch of an 
individual reveals his affectional states, and even his 
bodily condition. Such persons are like a delicate 
electrometer. Affection and friendship spontaneously 
grasp the hand of another. This is a contact of sens- 
itive and magnetic surfaces through which there is 
an actual interchange of feeling. When we wish to 
express and communicate a more ardent state of the 
feelings, we employ, besides the contact of the hands, 
the more sensitive surface of the lips, and as Tenny- 
son words it, " The spirits rush together at the touch- 
ing of the lips." This is a thing too sacred to be 
deemed a mere trifle. The kiss of a mother whose 
whole soul goes out in loving benediction upon her 
child, is no empty or unmeaning form. It is an actual 
communication of life, and the divine magnetism of 
love. It is proper to remark, that the lips have a 
sympathetic nervous connection with the organs in 
the back brain that correspond to the domestic and 
social affections. The touch, or imposition of the 
hand, has the effect of actually imparting the sphere 
of our life, and is the natural and spontaneous expres- 
sion of a desire to do good to others. Thus Jesus 
blessed little children, and a heart overflowing with 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 189 

benevolence, has often manifested its wish to commu- 
nicate good to others in the same way. It has a 
living power, and it is the divine order of our being, 
that vital force is transmissible from one to another 
by this means. When the two blind men, who sat 
by the way-side begging, cried to Jesus to have mer- 
cy upon them, he touched their eyes, and immediately 
they received sight, and followed him. ( Matt. xx. 
34.) In this way he imparted his own life to dis- 
eased humanity, but without any permanent loss of 
his vital force, for it is a law as invariable as that of 
gravitation, that to him who gives life, shall life be 
given. He shall receive from the exhaustless foun- 
tain, more than he imparts. We may be conscious 
that "virtue" has gone out of us, but we shall be 
made equally certain of the reception of an equivalent 
potential force. The imposition of the hands always 
imparts life to another, and as a therapeutic agency, 
we may rely upon it, with unhesitating confidence 
and absolute certainty. It is a remedy that never 
fails when under the direction of intelligence and 
love. 

The sensation of smell is occasioned by a minute 
exhalation of particles from the odorous body. Its 
anatomy is less understood than that of any of the 
other senses. The effluvia going forth from all 



190 TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 

material bodies, wafted by the atmosphere, affect the 
olfactory nerves of the nostrils. The design of the 
sense seems to be to give us a perception of what is 
agreeable to our life, spiritual and physical. There 
are certain substances that emit to us a disagreeable 
odor, because they are not in harmony with our na- 
ture, yet to certain animals they pour forth a deli- 
cious fragrance. 

The sense of smell may have a spiritual range of 
action. It may become an acute faculty of percep- 
tion, and so intensified as to be affected not merely 
by the emanations of material bodies, but by the men- 
tal sphere of an individual. A person whom we love, 
and with whom we are in sympathy, gratifies all our 
senses, and emits an agreeable spiritual odor. While 
one, toward whom we feel a deep repugnance, be- 
comes offensive to all our senses, and is a mental 
stench in our spiritual atmosphere. It is a law of 
our inner being, that whatever is out of harmony 
with our ruling love, should affect the spiritual sense 
of smell. When we hear a statement that is repug- 
nant to our feelings, or that we deem absurd, we 
sometimes instinctively expel the air from the nostrils, 
as if ridding the nasal cavity of a disagreeable odor. 
The feeling of disgust toward a person, is expressed 
by a peculiar movement of the muscles of the nose, 



THE MENTAL-CUKE. 191 

as if it were an effort to close the nostrils. This is 
sufficient to establish the , correspondential relation 
between the mind and the olfactory sensory. They 
also place in a rational and philosophical light the 
statement of a distinguished seer, and herald of a 
New Age, respecting the spiritual world. He dis- 
closes the fact that in the realm above, the emanat- 
ing sphere of spirits and angels is perceived as 
odorous, and the sense of smell becomes a means of 
perceiving character. When the sphere of another 
is in harmony with our own life, it comes as grate- 
ful perfume. When not in agreement with our affec- 
tions, it is perceived as an offensive odor. This is 
liable to ridicule from shallow minds who do not 
understand the hidden law T s of our being. But the 
statement rests on a scientific basis and is not so 
unlike what we here experience as to be destitute of 
credibility. In what we have said above, we see that 
the same law operates here, though not so perfectly 
as in the world beyond. All men know, or may be 
assured of it, that the perception of what is disagree- 
able to them ultimates itself in a correspondent move- 
ment of the nostrils. The concordant associations, 
into which the inhabitants of higher spheres are or- 
ganized by the law of affinity or spiritual attraction, 
are like the " smell of a field the Lord has blessed." 



192 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

On the celestial plains, where pure affections prevail 
and are the spring of all outward activity, odorous 
gales sweep over the eternal hills, and fragrant spirit- 
ual incense fills the land of everlasting spring as the 
fire of the golden censer perfumed the temple. The 
man who deems this a matter of ridicule, or unworthy 
the life above, to be consistent with himself ought to 
hold his nose, when with hypocritical sanctimonious- 
ness he walks in a flower garden. He should put a 
bandage over his nostrils in the presence of the mag- 
nolia and orange-groves of the South, which fill the 
adjacent regions with their rich perfumes. 

Taste is used in common language both in a 
physical and spiritual sense. It is employed to 
express a particular sensation excited in us by the 
application of certain substances to the tongue, as 
the taste of a grape or apple. Its office in the bodi- 
ly economy is to give us a perception of pleasure in 
the use of the natural aliments which are adapted to 
promote the growth and the healthful functional 
action of all the organs, and to build up the various 
tissues. It has also for an end to furnish us with a 
ready means of judging what is agreeable to the life 
of the body. In the animal races, in whom it is sel- 
dom perverted as in man, in connection with the 
sense of smell, which is analogous to it, it subserves 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 193 

this use with well-nigh unerring certainty. It has 
a correspondence with a certain mental function. 
We have an intellectual relish for those things which 
are not obnoxious to our interior life, and we have a 
discernment or power of perceiving what is promo- 
tive of our spiritual well-being and growth. Materi- 
al food serves a similar use in the outward organism 
to that which truths and spiritual enjoyments accom- 
plish in the interior man. These latter nourish the 
inward life and contribute to the development of 
the soul. Hunger and thirst answer, in the external 
nature, to the desire of knowing, of understanding 
and of becoming wise. And taste, in its spiritual 
application, expresses the power of discerning what 
is promotive of such an end, — especially a judgment 
based on experience — and a mental relish for and 
pleasure in those things. 

In what has been said above, we perceive that all 
the senses have correspondence with the spiritual 
nature of man. Sensation is located in the most ex- 
ternal degree of our inner being, in something- inter- 
mediate between pure mind and matter, and is the 
medium through which matter and spirit mutually 
act and react upon each other. This we have denomi- 
nated the spiritual body. It is proper to remark, also, 
that, as the sensation of light and sound is produced 



194 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

by an undulatory movement of a subtle element— the 
ether and the aura — pervading all space, so the other 
senses are affected in an analogous way. And all the 
senses may be excited to action without the interven- 
tion of any tangible material substance. They are 
called into action whenever and wherever the neces- 
sary vibratory force acts upon them. They are thus 
capable of a range of activity independent of the 
bodily organs. The spiritual senses are the common 
possession of humanity. The opening of them, as 
it is called, in certain persons, or rather their eman- 
cipation from their material instruments, is apt to be 
looked upon as an abnormal state, or as an extraor- 
dinary, if not miraculous, vouchsafement. If, in the 
hour of the rending off the external covering, and the 
transition of the inner man to immortality, the spirit- 
ual world is unveiled before the freed vision and ce- 
lestial voices and harmonies float in upon the enrap- 
tured inner ear, it is deemed proper and right, and is 
accepted as wheat ought to be. It is a consolation to 
surviving friends. In the funeral oration from the 
pulpit, which is now usually deaf, dumb, and blind to 
all spiritual realities, the comforting fact is dwelt upon 
with much solemn eloquence. But, if a person be- 
comes sufficiently spiritual twenty-five years before 
his departure to a higher realm, to see, hear, and even 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 195 

converse with those who walk the " velvety soils" of 
the land of perpetual spring, he is looked upon with 
suspicion, sometimes treated with neglect and con- 
tempt, and his sanity seriously called in question. So 
inconsistent a thing is human nature. In this way 
the world treated Emmanuel Swedenborg, the most 
illumined mind of modern history. 

We believe, with the force of a prophetic convic- 
tion, that the time is coming, and draws near, when 
men will be educated into the normal use of their 
spiritual senses. Then the spiritual world will no 
longer be like those large blank spaces on the earlier 
maps of Africa, marked " Unexplored Territory." 
The youthful imagination was wont to people this 
wondrous unknown region with all manner of men, 
animals, birds, and creeping things. To see and 
converse with those on the shining shore, and to 
pierce the hidden depths of the inner realms, will 
be deemed a no more extraordinary occurrence, than 
our every day social intercourse with those who are 
in this outside circumference of being. Such is the 
normal state of man, and may God and angels help 
us to return to nature and come into harmony with 
it. Only one thing is necessary to the unveiling of 
our spiritual senses, and that is the acquisition of the 
power of retiring behind the fleshly curtain, so that 



196 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

the interior man may act independently of the out- 
ward body. The main obstacle to this is the want of 
real faith in the actual and substantial existence of 
our interior selfhood — of a living personality within 
the material organism. Attaining this, the veil is 
rent and soon will be removed. As long as the out- . 
ward body is viewed as the chief thing in our exis- 
tence, aud fills the first place in our thoughts and 
affections, the inner senses will be in bondage and 
the spiritual world shrouded in darkness. As soon 
as men become assured, that the body is no necessary 
part of our manhood, but the spirit is the real man, 
they will be able to live independent of the material 
shell, free themselves from its thraldom, the inner 
senses will be opened, and they will become consci- 
ous inhabitants of a higher world. In the develop- 
ment of the new age, now opening before man a 
higher earthly destiny, this may become his normal 
state. The soul is sometimes freed, to a certain 
extent, from its bondage to the fleshly covering, and 
the spiritual senses are unveiled, by frequent fasting 
and ascetic mortifications; by an immoderate use of 
narcotics, as opium and hasheesh; by sickness, in 
which the powers -of the body are gradually weaken- 
ed ; by loss of sleep, and drowning. These are all 
favorable to the emancipation and manifestation of the 



THE MENTAL-CUKE. 197 

soul's interior powers. Whatever weakens the body 
loosens the soul's connection with it, and, in the 
same degree, gives opportunity for the independent 
exercise of the senses. But these are abnormal, and 
hence undesirable, modes of development. No meth- 
od of unfolding our inner powers is to be deemed desir- 
able which unfits a man for the duties and uses of 
our ordinary life. 



198 THE MENTAL-CUKE. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE MYSTERY OF LIFE EXPLAINED. 

Theories Concerning the Nature of Life. — Not the Result oj. 
Organization. — The Mosaic Theory. — Electro- Biology. 

— TJie Nervous Fluid. — Definition^ of Life by Bichat. 

— Coleridge. — Schelling. — Be Blainville. — Comte. — 
Herbert Spencer. — Swedenborg. — Its inmost Degree is 
Love. — Organic and Inorganic Forces. — Life a Force. — 
Correlation and Equivalence of Mental Forces. — Influence 
of the Emotive Life upon the Intellect. — Relation of Vital 
Force and Animal Heat. — Health is Equilibrium. — 
Disease an Inharmony. — Source of Animal Heat. — Heat 
a Form of Motion. — The Vital Movements. — The Heat 
of the Sun the Living Force of Nature. — God's Love an 
all-pervading Life. — The External lives from the Exter- 
nal. — Effect of Sensation upon the Body. — Influence of 
the Emotions and Affections upon the Organic Functions. 
— Secretion. — Muscular Contractility. — The Sexual In- 
stinct. — Its Influence upon the Involuntary Physiological 
Processes. — Importance of Regulating the Affections. — 
Impartation of Life. — Disease and Selfishness. — The 
Divine order of Human Existence. 

THE QUESTION " What is life ?" has been the 
unsolved mystery of ages. Some have made it 
identical with sensation ; while others have found the 
" vital spark of heavenly flame " in intelligence and 



THE MENTAL-CURE 199 

thought. Some have made it the result of organiza- 
tion. But why is life supposed to result from organ- 
ization, rather than organization from the vital force, 
whatever it may be ? Others have referred it to 
the contractility of the fibres. In these theories 
there is the error of taking effects for causes. 
Some have supposed it to be a certain indefinable 
principle superadded to the organism, and distinct 
from both the soul and the body, — a sort of divine 
Promethean spark to animate the clay image. They 
called this indefinable something, life, a word that has 
been used in Psychology and Physiology without any 
determinate signification. One mistake, common to 
all these theories, has consisted in taking certain 
effects or phenomena of life, for the vital principle itself. 
An ancient theory, dating as far back as the Jewish 
legislator, asserts that the life of the body is the 
blood, or is in the blood. The same might be pre- 
dicated of all the animal fluids — the mucous, the 
serum, or the gastric juice. But who could tell what 
gave animation to the blood itself? As to the soul, 
if it had any vitality distinct from its own essence, 
who could say what it was? Some more modern 
theorists have referred the vital phenomena to elec- 
tricity. If this were true, all that would be necessa- 
ry to add to one's vital stock, would be to insulate 



200 TILE MENTAL-CURE. 

him, and charge him from an electro-magnetic bat- 
tery. A favorite hypothesis, adopted by many, is 
that the so-called nervous fluid is the vital element 
of the body. But the existence of such a fluid has 
never been demonstrated. Whatever life is, it is 
certain it is not a fluid. Bichat gives a definition of 
life which has been extensively adopted, viz. " Life 
is the sum of the functions by which death is resist- 
ed." Of this definition Coleridge remarks, that he 
can discover in it no "other meaning than that life 
consists in being able to live." Coleridge, following 
Schelling, makes life to be the '-''tendency to individ- 
uation" or in other words, the force which combines 
many qualities into an individual existence. This 
is true, but indefinite and unsatisfactory. We still 
ask, What is the power that does this? De Blain- 
villc gives a definition of the vital principle, which 
was adopted by Comte, viz. "Life is the twofold 
internal movement of composition and decomposition 
at once general and continuous." In other words, it 
is included in the phenomena of absorption and excre- 
tion. But these physiological processes are the effect 
of life, and not the vital principle itself. Herbert Spen- 
cer gives an abstract definition of life in the following 
words: "Divesting the conception of all superfluities 
and reducing it to its most abstract shape, we see 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 201 

that life is definable as the continuous adjustment of 
internal relations to external relations." This may 
involve the idea of the "pre-established harmony" 
of Leibnitz, or it may mean that life is only sensa- 
tion. 

The whole subject of life, its nature and origin, 
has been involved in such profound mystery, that 
philosophy has sometimes deemed it the part of wis- 
dom not to meddle with it, but to pass it by, as 
belonging to those inscrutable matters, which, owing 
to the necessary limitations of finite thought, we 
must wait the light of a higher day to disclose. This 
is a way of disposing of a subject we do not under- 
stand, more convenient than scientific. A mystery 
is not always that which lies beyond the grasp of the 
human understanding, and is incomprehensible in its 
nature, but is something which has not been explain- 
ed. There are many things, which were once classed 
among the secret things that belong to the Deity 
alone, that are now well understood. And the awful 
circle of mystery, into w T hich men have been forbid- 
den to enter, or even profanely to look, has, in the 
growth of knowledge during the last century, been 
greatly narrowed down. In the progress of the light 
of the New Age, things will be taken from the class 
of the unknown, and what is deemed the unknowable, 



202 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

and placed among things revealed, that belong to us 
and our children. 

There is no more mystery about life, than there 
is about anything else. More than a century ago, 
one of the profoundest scholars and most illuminated 
minds of Europe, the Scandinavian Apocalyptist, 
cast into the darkness the inspired utterance, love is the 
life of man. This brief sentence is like the creative 
fiat, "Let there be light," when light first flashed 
upon the solid darkness of the abyss. Love is the 
inmost life of the soul. It is not only the common 
life of the body, the vital spark that animates the 
outward form, the spring of all its organic move- 
ments, and the force that impels the curious and 
wonderful machinery, but it is the vivifying principle 
of all sensation and thought. Love is the highest 
and divinest force in the universe, and in the body is 
correlated to all the other and lower forces. Sensibil- 
ity and intelligence, and all the psychological actions, 
are phenomena to which the term force is applicable. 
They are forces distinct from those that constitute 
the properties of matter, but nevertheless are forces. 
And all forces are persistent and mutually inter- 
changeable. Guided by the recent results of scientific 
investigation, the organic forces are regarded by 
many distinguished physiologists of the present day, 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 203 

as correlative of the common forces of the inorganic 
world. These may produce contractility, and this, 
sensation. Sensation may excite thought, and intelli- 
gence, and the movement of the intellect, as the di- 
rection of the thoughts to an amiable object, will 
excite the love. And the action of the affectional 
nature infuses life into all below it. Thought itself 
proceeds from love. This may not be the apparent 
truth, but an examination of the proposition in the 
light of consciousness, the ultimate tribunal before 
which all questions in mental philosophy must be 
decided, will show it to be the real fact. One thing 
we know, — that in proportion as our emotional na- 
ture is excited, the more active and the clearer 
become our thoughts. There are moments of emo- 
tional or affectional excitement, when the name of 
zeal or love burns with an intenser heat, and the 
intellect then emits a clearer light, and the man 
speaks with an eloquence and power, which, at other 
times, he never attains. When we think the clear- 
est, if we turn the eye of consciousness inward, we 
shall perceive that the brighter light in the intelli- 
gence is the radiance of a more ardent heat of the 
affections. For truth proceeds from love, as light 
from flame. The more vehement the excitement of 
the sensibility, the more luminous are our thoughts, 



204 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

just as in nature there is a dead and cold whiteness, 
and a shining or living brightness. In proportion 
as our affections, which are forms or manifestations 
of the love, grow cold, in the same degree the intel- 
lect loses its vigor, and the senses become torpid. 
Our thoughts instead of being bright scintilations 
that glitter and dazzle in the darkness, fall as black- 
ened scales from the cold iron on the anvil. Every 
thought and sensation, and movement either of the 
mind or body, has its birth in love. This is the only 
divine Promethean spark. Life is a flame, and the 
brighter it burns, the clearer the light it emits. 

The inmost life, the vital force of the soul, is love. 
This in passing outward, according to the law of cor- 
relation, becomes heat in the outward organism. For 
heat corresponds to love. It answers an analogous 
use in the realm of matter, to that which affection 
accomplishes in the world of mind. When this vital 
heat is equally and harmoniously distributed through 
the entire system, there is a state of health. Disease 
is a loss of the proper balance. It is an inharmonious 
distribution of the vital force, some parts or organs 
having an undue share, while others at the same time 
are robbed of their rightful proportion. In intermit- 
tent fevers, when there is too much heat at the surface, 
there is not enough within, and vice versa, and the 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 205 

system swings from one state to the other, like the 
motions of a pendulum, until the lost harmony is re- 
stored, or life extinct. The heat of the body is from 
no other source than the love. This is the life of the 
soul, which, ultimated in the material organism, be- 
comes vital heat. It is not a dead caloric, like that 
radiated from combustible bodies, though it may be 
correlated to it. Ordinary caloric is destitute of the 
spiritual element. Organic or living force does not 
act except at a certain temperature, which is an in- 
dispensable requisite to it. In warm blooded ani- 
mals 100° F. to 102° F. is the normal temperature. 
Greatly below this the vital movements are weakened 
or suspended. The development of the germ in the 
uterus cannot take place at a temperature much below 
the normal standard. 

The heat of the body is not derived alone fromtne 
combination of the oxygen of the air with the car- 
bonaceous elements of the blood. The best physio- 
logical authorities admit that this hypothesis is pro- 
foundly insufficient to solve the mystery or explain all 
its phenomena. The carbon and hydrogen, contained 
in our food, are not sufficient to replace the heat that 
is radiated from the body of a man exposed, day after 
day, to the cold atmosphere of winter. It would re- 
quire a considerable fraction of a cord of wood to do 



206 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

this. There must be some cause lying further back. 
This much we know — for it is a fact of observation and 
consciousness — that when we experience an increased 
intensity of the love or affections, the body responds 
with an augmented glow of vital heat, which shows 
itself even in the countenance. In proportion as we 
love, life thrills in every department of our being, and 
even warms the soul's tenement. How this is done, 
we may be able to understand in some degree. 

It is accepted now as a demonstrated truth of 
science, that heat is a form of motion. The hypothe- 
sis of a fluid, called caloric, has been abandoned. 
Motion and heat are correlated or mutually inter- 
changeable, the one into the other. More than a 
century ago, John Locke said, " Heat is a very brisk 
agitation of the insensible parts of an object which 
produces in us that sensation from which we denom- 
inate the object hot, so that what in our sensation is 
heat, in the object is nothing but motion.'''' This 
theory was maintained by Bacon, Newton, Count 
Humford, Sir Humphrey Davy and others. As light 
and sound are occasioned by a vibration of a subtle 
medium pervading all bodies, so heat is caused by a 
similar movement. Our affectional states, by passing 
outward to the bodily organism according to the law 
of correspondence, generate therein the peculiar mo- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 207 

tion that constitutes the essence of animal heat 
or the vital force. Love is the only moving power 
in the universe. Do we not tacitly recognize this 
in our language? Desire and affection are deri- 
vations of the love, and these have received the 
general name of emotions, a word which implies a 
moving of the mind, an excitement or agitation of 
the sensibility. 

But by what motions are the vital processes carried 
on? There are myriads of them sensible and insensible. 
First we have the systole and diastole of the heart, the 
contraction of the veins and arteries, and the har- 
monious action of the respiratory apparatus, including 
the lungs, diaphragm, and the muscles that move 
the ribs in breathing. In the organic vital phenome- 
na are included digestion, assimilation, absorption, 
circulation, nutrition, secretion, and excretion, and 
all these are motions among the particles and atoms. 
All the muscular fibres and tissues, by their irrita- 
bility or excitability, respond to the movements of the 
will or love, and this susceptibility they possess from 
this source alone. Motion is correlated to life, and 
corresponds to it. Hence the established efficiency 
of the Swedish movements, both single and dupli- 
cated, as a curative agency. When the body dies, 
it becomes cold and motionless at the same time. 



208 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

And it is only when this is the case, that it can be 
pronounced with certainty to be void of life. 

To recapitulate what we have said in this chapter, 
life is love, — a truth of far-reaching importance, and 
pregnant with meaning. But heat corresponds to 
love, and in the bodily organism is the ultimation of 
it, and the essence of heat is motion. All the mo- 
tions of the material universe owe their origin chief- 
ly to the heat emanating from the myriads of suns 
that float in the depths of space. The fixed stars are 
only remoter suns, and, according to Pouillet, we de- 
rive almost as much heat from them as from the cen- 
ter of our system. Here is the source of the motions 
that are constantly taking place in the world we 
inhabit, Were the influence of the sun's heat to be 
withdrawn from our earth, there wonld be a sepul- 
chral stillness, and a suspension of all motion at once. 
The world would be a motionless and lifeless mass. 
But wherever there is motion, there is some living 
love behind it as its cause, from the trembling of a 
leaf in the breeze, to the revolutions of a planet; 
from the contraction of a muscular fibre to the victo- 
rious march of an army. In the universe all is motion, 
because the Lord's all-animating love and all-pervad- 
ing life are in it, and all the movements of creation, 
from the fall of a sparrow to the ceaseless heavings 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 209 

of the ocean, and the flight of the viewless winds, are 
but the " stirrings of deep divinity within." All 
created things in the countless worlds that float in 
space, respond in harmony with the pulsations of the 
infinite heart of God, and motion is coeval with the 
divine life. Heat and light, like love and truth, are 
not to be classed among things created or creatable. 
There never was a time when space was an infinite 
void, and nothing stirred throughont its silent depths, 
and Deity dwelt alone in the solitude of his own eter- 
nity. Where He has been in time or space, there 
has been love, and life, and heat, and where these are, 
there must be motion. What has been, always will 
be. Ages, issuing from the dim distance of an eter- 
nity past, rush to be swallowed up in an eternity to 
come. In this endless procession of centuries and 
dispensations, each proclaims as it sweeps by with all 
its changes, and its voice dies away in silence, like 
the hush of winds at the close of day, — " God is the 
one and only Life." With this sublime and weighty 
utterance, the vail is lifted from life's profoundest 
mysteries. All science is drifting the human mind 
towards the recognition of this universal truth. If 
we question things created, and ask them why they 
exist, they answer, "Because God is love, and love is 
life and where that life breathes, there must be joy- 



210 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

ous being to share the irrepressible bliss of the Divine 
Mind. For in him we live, and move, and have our 
being." 

It is a truth of great practical value in a system 
of Mental Hygiene that every external degree of our 
complex being is affected by the state of the internal 
degrees. The external derives its vital activity from 
something interior to it, and the movements of tlie 
external are correspondences of the more internal or 
spiritual force, or, to use the popular scientific lan- 
guage of the day, they are mutually correlated, and 
act and react upon each other. To illustrate this, let 
us begin with the sensuous range of the mind which 
we have shown to be the spiritual body. Sensation is 
not life, for the external senses may all be closed, or 
their action suspended, and life not be extinct. This 
is the case with man in sleep, in the trance, in swoon- 
ing andsynocope, and with bybernating animals, dur- 
ing their torpitude in winter. All the varieties of sen- 
sation may be reduced to the sense of touch or feeling, 
which is the universal sense, and belongs to the love. 
It is the love, or vital force, acting upon the lowest 
or outermost plane of the mind. The action of the 
senses serves to open, or excite to their appropriate 
movement, the minute and invisible organic vessels 
of the external man, so as to render the body recep- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 211 

tive of the influent life from the internal mind. 
They are an intermediate principle through which 
life passes outward to the external organism. It 
has been shown by recent physiological investiga- 
tions, that sensations excite to increased activity the 
secreting organs in a perceptible degree; also that 

they affect the action of both the involuntary and 
voluntary muscles, for the interior spiritual forces 
are correlative of the organic forces, or transmutable 
into them. Sensations increase the action of the 
heart, and in a degree proportioned to their intensity, 
and recent physiological inquiries imply not only 
that contraction of the heart is excited by every sen- 
sation, but also that the muscular fibers, throughout 
the whole vascular system, are at the same time more 
or less contracted. The rate of breathing is visibly 
augmented both by pleasurable and painful impres- 
sions on the nerves, when they reach any intensity. It 
has even been shown that inspiration becomes more 
frequent on transition from darkness into sunshine, and 
the sensation of light renders the body more positively 
vital. It is not too much to suppose that the time will 
come in the progressive development of the New Age, 
when the action of all the organs can be regulated 
by means of sensation, so as either to increase or 
lower tli.'i r vital tone. Some slight and apparently 



212 THE MENTAL-CUKE. 

insignificant sensations, as an excitement of the 
nerves of touch by tickling, are followed by almost 
incontrollable movements of the voluntary muscles, 
as those of the arms or legs. Violent pains cause 
violent struggles and contortions, and great pleasure 
is attended with equally noticeable movements. 
The effect of sensation upon the muscular tissue, 
is seen in the sudden start that follows a loud sound, 
the wry face produced by the taste of any thing disa- 
greeable, the jerk with which the hand or foot is 
snatched out of hot water, and the instinctive draw- 
ing back and turning away from an offensive odor. 
All these instances are illustrations of the transform- 
ation of feeling, which belongs to our inner nature, 
into muscular motion. There is a definite quantita- 
tive relation between them, as it is manifest that the 
force of the bodily action is proportioned to the quan- 
tity of the sensation. Torpidity of the senses must 
always be attended with a lowering of the vital force 
of the body, and a loosening of the connection of the 
mind with it. There is a sanative influence in the 
appropriate delights of each of the senses. They 
have an important hygienic value. He who under- 
stands their effect, can sometimes prescribe them as 
the best remedial agency. To ignore their pleasures 
and mortify them, under the influence of a morbid 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 213 

religious asceticism, is to enter the gloomy highway 
of disease and death. Their enjoyment, in the high- 
est degree, is the normal state of man in the present 
stage of our endless existence. 

If we take the emotions, — which are a more in- 
ternal action of the love than sensation, — we find 
their effect upon the bodily organism equally 
marked. Emotions of only moderate intensity, gen- 
erate little beyond a slight degree of the excitement 
of the heart and the vascular system, and this is nec- 
essarily attended with increased action of the gland- 
ular organs. Certain states of the affections or feel- 
ings change the character of the secretions. A fit of 
passion has been known so to affect the milk of the 
mother as to throw her child into convulsions. The 
saliva of the dog is so altered by his being enraged 
as to render his bite poisonous. All the emotions 
and passions affect, by the law of correspondence or 
correlation, all the secreting organs. But the emo- 
tions are a spiritual force, and in passing outward to 
the material organism are transmuted into physio- 
logical movements and muscular action. Certain 
bodily motions are only the equivalence of certain 
mental states. Witness the frowns, stampings, strik- 
ings, and threatening attitudes of anger, the frantic 
struggles of terror, the wringing of the hands and 



214 THE MENTAL-CORE. 

swaying of the body back and forth of grief, the 
smiles of satisfaction, and the dancings of great de- 
light. To leap for joy is a common expression, but 
the movement of the body is the effect of the inward 
mental state and is only its ultimate expression. 
The emotion or excitement of the love, is the cause. 
These effects are only more visible, but no more real, 
than those organic movements which we can not per- 
ceive. Every change of our feelings or our affective 
life, is followed by a correspondent change in the 
functional action of all the vital organs. 

There is no emotive or affectional state of more 
importance in Mental Hygiene, than the proper ac- 
tion of the sexual instinct. The cerebral organ of 
its manifestation is in the cerebellum. This brain is 
also the organ of the involuntary, or, what has been 
improperly called, the vegetative life. Comte includes 
all the involuntary physiological processes under the 
term nutrition, and locates its organ in the center ot 
the cerebellum. It is evident that an inharmonious 
or over-excitement of the sexual emotion must draw 
into itself and expend too large a share of the vital 
force of the cerebellum, and consequently lower the 
tone of all the involuntary organs. Here is the spirit- 
ual root of more diseases of body and mind than can 
be traced to any other one source. The sexual and 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 215 

conjugal love is most intimately connected with the 
inmost life of the spirit, and is the fountain of more 
happiness or misery than originates with any other 
affection, according as it is properly controlled, or 
left to a disorderly activity and indulgence. The part 
of our mental organism that imparts life to a new 
human being, must be in a high degree vital, and 
come near the creative force. The whole train of 
the diseases of the reproductive organs, constituting 
a large proportion of the cases of chronic ailments, 
are caused by a want of harmony here, and their re- 
lief is only temporary and deceptive, until this 
department of the spiritual nature is restored to 
order. The superior value of the magnetic, or, more 
properly, the psychological method of treatment, 
arises from the perfect control which it has over the 
mental states, the affective and emotive life of the 
patient, and thus extends its healing force into the 
realm of spiritual causation, and touches' the spring 
of the body's vitality. 

If the doctrine of this chapter is accepted as truth 
by the intuitive reason, it will show, in a clear light, 
the importance of properly regulating the affections 
and the whole emotional nature. A loss of harmony 
here is the secret spring of most, if not all, of the 
thirteen hundred diseases described in works on 



216 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

Nosology. If life is love, then all the physiological 
processes must he modified hy our affectional states. 
There are some of the nohlest and purest of earth's 
inhabitants, both male and female, who are slowly 
but surely marching to the cemetery, from a blasted, 
withered state of the social affections — dying from 
disappointed and unsatisfied love. They are num- 
bered by legions, and are found within and without 
the conjugal relation. This pathological mental 
state, lowers the tone of all the organic functions. 
This atrophy of the soul enfeebles the vital move- 
ments of the whole body, and the body sinks under 
disease, like a tender plant smitten with an untimely 
frost. Drugs are powerless to reach the seat of the 
trouble. The remedy must be spiritual. 

The life of God is love. His love is an infinite 
desire to impart his own good to others. The lifo 
of angels is a stream from this only fountain, and 
partakes of the properties of its source. If we 
open our hearts to receive the influx of the divine 
and heavenly life, it will be in us a desire and cona- 
tus to impart the good, with which we are blessed, 
to all who are willing to receive it, and are admissive 
of it. Such is the true order of life, the normal state 
of every soul. It is evident we can never attain to 
the highest well-being of either soul or body, until 



THE MENTAL- CURE. 217 

we come into the divine order of our existence, and 
employ the activity with which we are endowed, ac- 
cording to the laws of the celestial life. We were 
made to impart, to be the media through which 
God's gifts could be transmitted to others. We are 
finite receptacles of the divine good and truth. We 
were not designed to absorb the divine rays, but to 
reflect them as well — to be each a center of radia- 
tion. One of the most prominent organs in the 
brain is benevolence. The mental feeling, of which 
it is the outward instrument, is a desire to impart, to 
share our good with others. When this divine 
impulse is perverted in its action, our love terminates 
in self, and we become the center of our universe. 
Selfishness is the fruitful root of more moral and phys- 
ical evil and unhappiness, than any other cause. It 
is the perversion of the divinest instinct of human 
nature, a cessation of the pulsations of the central 
Life within us. The only true and happy life on 
earth, is that of love. Wisdom is divine. Truth is 
a ray from God. Science and philosophy are a spirit- 
ual treasure and desirable possession. Wealth, 
official station and power, are good in themselves. 
But the divinest thing in the universe is love — an 
all-absorbing charity. Blessed is the man in whose 
inner nature it is the supreme and governing princi- 



til 8 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

pie, and who has consecrated himself to the good 
of universal being. 

Disease is often only a state of supreme selfishness. 
It is a law, universal and immutable, that by impart- 
ing, we receive, and when we cease to impart, we 
cease to receive, and the stream of our life begins to 
dry up at the fountain. The candle under a bushel, 
soon becomes only a smoking wick. To communi- 
cate truth to another, quickens our own intellectual 
life, and renders us receptive of more than we give. 
There are those who are ever learning, but never able to 
come to the knowledge of the truth. They are like the 
dark substances in nature, that absorb all the rays, 
and never can become transparent and luminous. 
Give, and it shall be given, is a law that governs in 
the whole realm of mind. It has its application to 
every form of good. 

There are many unsound mental states, which ulti- 
mate themselves, according to the law of spiritual 
influx, in various diseased bodily conditions, that have 
their root in this perversion of the true order of our 
being. Such persons are unhappy, and consequently 
unhealthy, because in the unnatural state in which 
they are, they think only of themselves — their own com- 
fort and enjoyment. Insanity, especially in the form 
of melancholy, is often nothing but selfishness. The 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 219 

brain is inflamed, and there is a congestion of its mag- 
netic life, simply because its magnetism does not flow 
forth in showers of blessings upon others. The waste, 
worn out nerve-aura accumulates, because it does not 
radiate around, making every thing happier and better 
by receiving it. Such unhappy and gloomy souls, we 
fondly believe, when they put off the external envelope, 
and wake to consciousness in the spiritual world, will 
be cured of their diseased mental state, and their con- 
sequent bodily infirmities. But the cure will be effect- 
ed, not by the breathing of the celestial aura, or rev- 
eling in the heavenly aroma wafted by the gales that 
sweep over celestial landscapes, but by being instruct- 
ed by angels, and guided by spiritual tutors into the 
true order of their life. If we deem ourselves the 
most miserable of human kind, and our soul the most 
wretched thing in the universe, it is because we have 
forgotten others in our insane absorption into self. 
The remedy is here and now. Make the heart of 
something outside your own being to leap for joy. 
Attune your soul in harmony with the Life Divine. 
Live to love, and then you will delight to live; and 
health will glow and thrill in every organic structure. 
Find some one whose condition is unhappy like your 
own. Lift up your hand and your heart, and pull 
down a blessing upon his head. The best prescrip- 



220 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

tion that man or angel can give to relieve your soul- 
misery, and the correspondent abnormal physiological 
state is, Be, like Jesus, every one's best friend. Seek 
to make every body and every thing happy. The 
good, you intend to others, will come to you in divine 
measure, more than you give. Get well by curing 
others. Impart life, communicate from your own stock 
of vital force to others, and life from God, its sempi- 
ternal source, and from the angel-world, will flow 
in to replenish your store. To love another so as to 
long to impart our good and our very life to him, 
sends a thrill of life through our whole being. It 
kindles anew the vital fire in the decaying body. 
This will seem to the world at large, absorbed in 
their selfish schemes, as an idle dream, a transcenden- 
tal revery. Medical science, with its antiquated the- 
ories, will reject and scout so spiritual a remedy, and 
still cling to its senseless formulas and deleterious 
drugs. But we still aver there is more in it, than 
the science of to day is ready to admit. And is it 
not true, that there is more in heaven and earth, 
than philosophy ever dreamed of? Has science gone 
to the utmost boundary of all that is knowable ? Is 
it not time for medicine to take an advanced step ? 
Is it the province of a true philosophy, like the 
Roman god, Terminus, to etcrnaHv watch the old 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 221 

landmarks, lest the boundaries be moved? Are the 
limits of knowledge forever fixed, or is truth pro- 
gressive in its endless evolutions ? Is there not in 
every human soul the divine germ of an infinite 
development, a capacity of an everlasting unfolding ? 
Is the stunted, dwarfish growth of the past centuries, 
the final goal of the mind's race-course, and the 
terminus of the soul in its march of endless pro- 
gression ? 



222 TILE MENTAL-CUKE. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

MENTAL METAMORPHOSIS ; OR HOW TO INDUCE 
UPON OURSELVES ANY DESIRABLE MENTAL 
STATE. 

Relation of Mental Disturbance to Disease. — Therapeutic 
Spiritual Forces. — Our Emotions involuntary. — Self -Con- 
version. — A General Law stated. — Relation of Form to 
Internal Character. — The Lesson taught us by the Stage. 

— Expression of our inward States by the Face. — How to 
effect a Change in our Feelings. — Hygienic value of the 
Law. — Inspiration and Respiration. — Soul and Breath. 

— Peculiar Sensation attending Psychological Influence. 

Nearness of the Inner Realm. — How to be Inspired. 

Breathing of the Soul. — The Respiration peculiar to all 
depressing Mental States. — How to relieve ourselves of them. 

— Usefulness of the Swedish Movements. 

THE DIFFERENT states of the mind, both in 
the department of thought and feeling., influence 
the physiological manifestations. All psychological 
movements effect a change in the organic functions. 
Hence the law according to which our feelings may 
be changed and controlled, is one of great hygienic 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 223 

value. Every one who has ever had much to do in 
the treatment of the various forms of chronic disease, 
must have frequently heard the remark made by in- 
valids, that some peculiar mental trouble, some disap- 
pointment, or unhappiness, or abnormal excitement 
or derangement of the spiritual nature, was the orig- 
inal cause of their ill health. And in every case, if 
we investigate their mental history, we shall find some 
disturbance of the spiritual equilibrium to underlie 
their pathological condition. But how few, either 
among patients or physicians, ever think of finding a 
cure in the removal of the interior cause of their dis- 
ease, and in the restoration of the mind to a sound 
and healthy state. How few seem to make any prac- 
tical use of those spiritual forces, that exercise so po- 
tent an influence over the external organism, both in 
the generation of diseased conditions, and as a thera- 
peutic agency. Every particular case needs instruc- 
tion adapted to its peculiarities, and we can lay down 
only some general principles, that may serve as hints 
in the treatment of all cases. We shall not in this 
chapter attempt to show how one mind may so act 
upon another as to change its mental state, but how 
the patient may effect in himself a spiritual metamor- 
phosis, and induce upon himself any desirable mental 
state. For it is a matter of prime importance to teach 



224 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

a chronic invalid to be self-reliant, and to become his 
own physician. 

We. have seen that our thoughts and affections are 
not self-originated, but are the result of an influx 
from the world of spirit, which is interfused within 
this realm of being. It might, at first, seem from 
this, that the soul of man was only a passive recipient 
of the ideas and feelings of others, and that we could 
have no more control over our emotional and intellec- 
tual states, than over the winds that blow upon us. 
It is true that our thoughts and affections are involun- 
tary, in the sense that they cannot be changed by the 
direct action of the will. We often struggle long and 
hard against them, and gain no relief from their infest- 
ation. A mere command of the volitive power cannot 
dispel melancholy, regret, fear, anxiety, guilt, or any 
affection or emotion we do not wish to nourish, and 
of which we would gladly rid ourselves. They cleave 
to us like the poisoned shirt of Nessus. Still the hu- 
man soul is not like a ship on a stormy sea, driven 
before tempests and resistless currents, without rud- 
der or compass. While it is admitted, that neither 
thought nor affection is self-derived, but both flow 
in from our vital connection with the all-surronding, 
all-pervading spiritual world, and we are under the 
law of necessity both to think and feel while we live, 



THE MEXTAL-CURE. 225 

yet if unhappy feelings or mental states flow in, why 
may not good ones as well? We drink in spiritual 
life from another realm of heing ; but can we not 
choose at what fountain or stream we will receive ? 
Is there not a law of which we may avail ourselves, 
and by conformity to which, we may render ourselves 
receptive of any desirable mental state we may wish 
to induce upon ourselves, as one of calmness or joy, 
of faith or trust, of gentleness and lovingness ? 
There is a way, easy and practical, by which we may 
loosen the hold of any unhappy feeling upon us, and 
cause it to give place to a better state. Suppose we 
find ourselves, no matter from what cause, suffering 
from certain disordered and depressing mental states, 
as anxiety, or sadness, or despair, or hurry of spirits, 
or the foreboding of evil, or conscious self-imposed 
guilt, so that we are filled with inward disquietude, 
and suffering the consequent derangement of the 
bodily functions. We desire to exchange our pres- 
ent mental condition for a happy one— to convert 
ourselves, to ci make to ourselves a new heart and a 
new spirit." We would be rid of the evil and attain 
the opposite good. How can this be done in harmo- 
ny with the truth, that our feelings are involuntary, 
and come to us from without, and do not originate 
from the depth of our being ? If we are at all self 



226 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

reliant, we need send for neither the priest nor the 
doctor. They are often like the blind leading the 
blind, and both fall into the ditch. They are a bro- 
ken reed, on which if we lean, it will pierce oar hand. 
To struggle against our feelings, will do us no good, 
for action and reaction will here be equal. Our con- 
vulsive efforts to deliver ourselves from our mental 
sufferings, will only plunge us the deeper, like a man 
sinking in the mire. We are then to cease all useless 
strugglings and vain efforts to free ourselves by our 
own strength. Let the soul be calm and passive. Let 
it be negative and receptive towards the sphere of 
those who are in the state you would induce upon 
yourself, whether they are in this world or that 
above. 

We lay down this general law — that influx is always 
into forms that are correspondences. We will explain 
this. Between external form and internal character 
there is everywhere the relation of cause and effect. 
Between the outward configuration of an object and 
its inward nature, there is mutual action and reac- 
tion. "It is everywhere the indwelling life, which 
determines the external form of things. Through- 
out nature, in strict accordance with this law, differ- 
ences of configuration are, in all cases, found to be 
commensurate with differences of character and use. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 227 

Things which resemble each other in quality and 
function resemble each other in shape; and where- 
ever there is unlikeness in quality and function, there 
is unlikeness in form; in other words, there is a 
determinate relation between the constitution and 
appearence of material objects; and the reason why 
any particular animal or plant assumes its own pre- 
cise figure rather than any other, need be sought only 
in the necessity of adapting configuration to charac- 
ter." {New Physiognomy, by Samuel JR. Wells, p. 83.) 
The relation of the outward form to the interior es- 
sence and character, is a universal one, and in living 
beings is a mutual one To put an animal into a 
form or attitude that expresses some ruling passion, 
will excite it to action. This we have successfully 
tried. So in man, when the external is made to 
assume a form in harmony with any spiritual state, 
the emotions and thoughts constituting it flow in. 
It is a law of our being, uniform in its operation, 
that when we assume the attitude which outwardly 
expresses or manifests any feeling or sentiment, it 
spontaneously arises within us. There are many 
familiar illustrations of this. When an actor on the 
stage, by his countenance, attitudes, and gestures, 
outwardly manifests the feelings that belong to the 
characters he personates, they take possession of 



228 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

him in all their reality, and sometimes with over- 
powering force. The power of not only feigning the 
emotions and passions that tragic and comic acting 
are designed to represent, but of actually inducing 
them upon one's self, is the secret of the highest 
attainments in the art. But all this takes place in 
harmony with the laws of our nature, and is due only 
in part to a susceptible constitution. The relation 
of body and soul is that of correspondence, and 
there is a tendency in each to adjust itself in harmo- 
ny with the other. The external form is under the 
control of the internal manhood, and obeys the dic- 
tates of its volitions. By an effort of will, it can be 
made to assume any attitude we please, and when it 
comes into the external form that manifests or ex- 
presses any feeling, it becomes as a prepared vessel 
to receive it from the spiritual realms. All our inte- 
rior states are outwardly expressed by that most 
wonderfully organized instrument of the mind — the 
human face. Its muscles respond spontaneously to 
the least change of feeling, and mold the counte- 
nance into the ultimate image of every varying emo- 
tion. And melancholy cannot long reign in the 
mind, when tbe face is made to assume the form 
that expresses mirthfulness. So of all other depress- 
ing mental states. The muscles of the face will 



THE MENTAL-CUKE. 229 

respond to the force of the will, and form an image 
expressive or representative of the opposite feelings, 
and the breath of lives shall be infused into it, and 
the outward form shall become a living soul. If one 
is troubled with a hurry of spirits, so common in 
chronic diseases of the so-called nervous type, and 
which quickens all its movements, the pulsations of 
the heart, and the respiratory action, and exhausts 
the nerve force, let him see to it, that all his out- 
ward motions are slow and tranquil. Become exter- 
nally quiet, and soon a tranquil feeling will steal 
over the mind, as gently as the dews of evening de- 
scend upon the flower. If one is sad or gloomy, or 
fearful, or desponding, or suffers from a loss of self- 
respect, or is habitually impatient, let him voluntari- 
ly assume the attitude that outwardly expresses the 
opposite state, and the desired emotion will arise in 
nis consciousness. Here is a principle of great prac- 
tical hygienic importance and has its application to 
all those abnormal and pathological mental states 
that sustain a causal relation to the various forms of 
chronic disease. We can place the external man in 
such an attitude and form, as shall no longer ultimate 
the feelings we wish to remove, but which shall be 
the correspondence of the opposite emotional state. 
Then the disordered psychological condition, of 



230 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

which we wish to clear ourselves, having no basis on 
which to rest, comes to an end, like the fall of a tow- 
er when the foundation is removed, and the opposite 
affectional state flows in from above into the corres- 
pondent and receptive form. The wind of the spirit 
blowcth where it Ksteth, and if we spread our canvas 
aright, we shall catch celestial gales. When the 
outward man comes into correspondent harmony with 
the affections that prevail in the heavens, the soul 
will vibrate in harmony with the angels. Celestial 
motion will be communicated to our spirit's harp 
strings, and bliss shall pervade our soul, like festive 
lights in a long deserted mansion. For the external 
atmosphere will no more certainly rush in to fill a 
vacuum, than the all-surrounding spirit-world will 
flow into the outward forms that are the correspond- 
ent or ultimate expression of its states. 

To receive light and love, thought and affection, 
from the upper or inner world, is to be insjn'red. If wc 
would be inspired with any particular feeling, as that 
of joy, or peace, or hope, or faith, it is important 
that we attend to our respiration. Inspiration 
means an in-lreatliing. And there is an important 
connection between the manner of our respiration 
and our states of mind. When Swedenborg asserts 
that in the primeval age, the paradisiacal state, the 



THE MENTAL-CUEE. 231 

golden age of the poets, when men were in the supe- 
rior, or rather interior condition, their breathing was 
tacit, and not externally perceptible, it is what we 
should naturally expect, provided it be historically 
true that there ever was such an age of the world or 
race of men. The statement, as to the mode of 
their respiration, rests on a scientific basis. They 
thought interiorly, abstractly, intensely, and passive- 
ly, and their respiration corresponded. The nearer 
we approach to the same state of thought, the less 
discernible is our breathing. The more interiorly we 
think, the more tacit is our respiration, as in the 
genuine trance. And there are states of rapt ab- 
straction from our external surroundings, when the 
body seems breathless, and the spirit only respires. 
The breathing is internal, invisible, and in harmony 
with that of the spiritual world, and then the intel- 
lect is exalted to a higher plane of action. That 
there is an important connection between our modes 
of respiration, and our states of mind, is a physiologi- 
cal and psychological truth, not hitherto suffi- 
ciently attended to, but worthy of investigation. 
In all languages, the air is made representative of 
spirit, and it is a fact familiar to the seers of all 
ages, that influx from the spiritual world, is often- 
times attended with a sensation as of a cool air blow- 



232 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

ing upon some part of the person. Thus the word 
used for soul or spirit is derived from a term mean- 
ing air 5 wind, or breath. Thus the. Latin animus 
and anima, are from the Greek aminos, wind. The 
old Saxon word for spirit, ghost, and the German 
geist, are only another form of the term gas, which 
is from the same root. In the Christian and Jewish 
Scriptures, there is only one word used to express 
the two ideas of wind and spirit. "The wind blow- 
eth where it listeth, and thou nearest the voice there- 
of, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither 
it goeth. So it is with whatsoever is generated 
from the spirit." The latter word is the same that 
is rendered wind at the commencement of the pass- 
age. The spiritual realm is within and around the 
material world. The sphere of the one pervades the 
atmosphere of the other. That sphere is composed 
of the emanations, or vibrations, of the life of 
angels. Thus we inhale the affectional states of 
those above and around us. While gently breathing 
deep and full, we may elevate the soul's aspirations 
to the upper realms. A desire for a particular state, 
if it be not inordinate, but calm and tranquil, is a 
reaching forth of the mind to grasp it. Such is the 
radical sense of the word. It is a negative and 
receptive state, a consciousness of want, a sort of 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 233 

mental vacuum. It renders us admissive of the 
mental state we wish to induce upon ourselves. 
With the mind thus fixed upon those above, we may 
breathe through to the spiritual range of life, and inhale 
purity, peace, and bliss from perennial and immortal 
fountains — the sphere of angels and of God. "We 
hear people talk about the soul's breathing after 
purity and bliss, yet the expression has lost its mean- 
ing, and has degenerated into a cant phrase, of 
which no definite idea is formed. To aspire to any 
spiritual state, is to breathe after it, (from the Latin 
ad towards, and spiro, to breathe.) The very word 
spirit comes from spiro to breathe. So also the 
French esprit, the Italian spirito, the Spanish espiritu, 
and the Latin spiritus. The interior man respires, 
as well as the external body, but its respiration is 
tacit to the senses, and is not recognizable as that of 
the outward man is. "There is a natural body and 
there is a spiritual body," and the respiration of the 
one is synchronous and harmonious with the other. 
The one breathes an atmosphere surrounding the 
globe we inhabit, and charged with the effluvia of 
material objects; the other an aura enveloping the 
spiritual world, and pervaded with the emanating 
sphere of its inhabitants. The air has pneumatical 
or spiritual life within its serene depths. Thus while 



234 THE MENTAL- CURE. 

we breathe the "sir of immensity," we may inhale the 
aura of celestial climes, impregnated with the joys 
and affectional states of the angels, and the spirit3 
of the blest, who have been born into an undying 
life. We may be inspired with a bliss from above, 
and with spiritual delights that shall make our life a 
perpetual psalm of praise, and fill with unuttered 
hallelujahs our every day concerns. But these hints 
and suggestions are given only to those " who have 
ears to hear" — who believe the spiritual world is the 
reality, our earthly life, the dream. 

All depressing, mental states are attended with a 
peculiar respiration, the top of the lungs only being 
called into action, and not the abdominal muscles. By 
directing the mind to the frontal muscles, and breath- 
ing naturally, and not too artificially, arid with no 
other effort of will than the fixing of the thoughts 
upon the abdominal coverings, their muscular tissue 
is contracted in the respiratory act, and this will go 
far towards relieving the mind of any morbid state of 
the feelings, as anxiety and melancholy, and the whole 
class of depressing emotions. We have known this 
to effect, in a few moments, a surprising metamorpho- 
sis in the mental condition of a patient. As a reme- 
dial agency in a system of Mental Hygiene, it deserves 
consideration and a fair trial. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 235 

The motion of the diaphragm and the lungs in 
breathing, communicates a peculiar movement to the 
cerebral mass, and affects the action of the brain, and 
consequent]} 7 the manifestations of the mind. In a- 
work entitled " The Institutions of Physiology," by 
Blurnenbach, it is said in speaking of the brain, " that 
after birth it undergoes a constant and gentle motion 
correspondent with respiration, so that when the lungs 
shrink in expiration, the brain rises a little, but when 
the chest expands, it again subsides." The discovery 
of this concordant movement of the lungs and the 
brain, has been claimed by some for Swedenborg, but 
Blumenbach ascribes it to Daniel Schlichting who 
described it in 1744. It shows, in a clear light, the 
sympathetic connection between the lungs and the 
cerebrum, and the effect of respiration upon the organ 
of the mind, and consequently upon our mental states. 
Just in proportion as the respiratory movements are 
diminished, external consciousness and sensibility are 
lessened. When we cease breathing, they are sus- 
pended altogether. The external manifestations # of 
the mind are no longer possible, when the movement 
of the brain, consequent upon, or synchronous with 
respiration, terminates. It is also reasonable to sup- 
pose, that the several varieties of respiration should be 
accompanied with peculiar mental states, as well as 



236 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

with peculiar movements of the cerebral mass. This 
is confirmed by experience. To relieve ourselves of 
any involuntary and unhappy state of the mind, we 
have only to change the mode of respiration peculiar 
to it, for that which belongs to the opposite state, 
and the desired feeling or emotion will arise within 
us. The Swedish Movements are peculiarly adapt- 
ed to effect the necessary change, both as to degree 
and character, of the breathing which characterizes 
all depressing and abnormal mental states. Hence 
their demonstrated efficiency in the cure of chronic 
diseases, both of the mind and body. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 237 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE COMMUNICATION OF LIFE AND OF SANA- 
TIVE MENTAL INFLUENCE. 

The Primal Source of Life. — Man imparts life to all below him. 

— Vital Force Communicable. — How Jesus gave his Life a 
Ransom for Many . — His cures not Miraculous in the Theo- 
logical Sense. — The royal Touch for Scrofula. — Sanative 
Influence of the Hand. — Knowledge is Power. — Mental 
Conditions necessary to a Cure. — Faith a Spiritual Force. 

— Its Therapeutic Influence. — The Cure of a Paralytic by 
Davy with a Thermometer. — Effect of Fear. — Case of Hy- 
drophobia caused by it. — Experiment with four Russian 
Criminals. — Hie Rose- Water Cure. — Vital Force and Ani- 
mal. Heat correlative. — How Heat is generated and trans- 
mitted. — Therapeutic Influence of Friction, — Compression. 

— Percussion. — Motion. — Adaptation of the Hand as an 
Instrument for Communicating Life. — Efficiency of the 
Duplicated Movements accounted for. — How to Induce 
upon a Patient the proper State of Mind. — Polarity of our 
Feelings. — Inverted Action of the Cerebral Organs. — Res- 
toration of the Equilibrium. — Mental Vibration. — How 
Jesus healed the Sick. — Health is Contaaious. — Spiritual 
Inoculation. — Mental Leaven. 

THE INMOST life of all that exists is the divine 
Love. Creation has gone forth from this, and the 
life that thrills in the universe owes its origin to this 



238 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

primal source. Life emanates from this living 
center, and is communicated to all, constituting the 
ground of all finite existence. From this focal 
source, it goes out in endless and perpetual undula- 
tions, and all live by virtue of life transmitted from 
him. It finds its highest, completest manifestation 
in man, in the human soul made into the divine 
image and likeness. Man is a finite created recepta- 
cle of the divine love and wisdom. For as the 
Father has life in himself, he has given to every 
human being to have life in himself, and to be a 
reservoir for its distribution. And man is vitally 
positive towards all the lower degrees of creation, 
and they exist from God through him. His life, in 
its essence, is love springing eternally from the depth 
of the divine being. As life is communicated from 
God, so also is it from man, but from some more 
than from others. We have shown that our affec- 
tional states are transmissible, from one person to 
another by the touch. Life is a force, and motion 
and force are communicable from one body to anoth- 
er. It is a fact that the world has long recognized, 
that one person may derive vital force from another 
person. Thus when the monarch of Israel was enfee- 
bled by age, they procured for him a young and 
healthy damsel to impart vital heat to his negative 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 239 

organism. It is a truth recognized by all physiolo- 
gists and schools of medicine, that a young child 
occupying the same bed with an old person, will be 
robbed of its vitality, as certainly as a heated body 
will impart a thermal influence to another near or in 
contact with it. The child will pine away and some- 
times die, without any apparent organic disease, but 
by a gradual lowering of the vital tone, while the 
older person becomes proportionately more vigorous, 
and maintains a parasitic existence. When we assert 
that life is communicable, that vital force is trans- 
missible from one human being to another, we occupy 
undisputed ground. It was in harmony with this 
recognized law of our being, that Jesus cured dis- 
eased humanity. He laid down his life for men, — 
an expression that has no reference to his death. In 
the tenth chapter of John's Gospel, he calls himself 
the good shepherd, and affirms that he lays down 
his life for the sheep. One definition of the word 
rendered here to lay down, is to impart, to put into or 
loithin any one. In another place it is so used in 
reference to the sphere of the divine life, — as " I will 
put my spirit upon or into him." (Mat. xii. 18). In 
this sense he every day laid down, or imparted his 
life to diseased humanity, and he taught his disciples 
or scholars to do the same, "to cure all manner of 



^40 THE MENTAL-CUKE. 

sickness and disease among the people," a power that 
ought to have continued in the church to this day, 
and would if the charity or love from which it sprang 
had not died out. He gave his life a ransom for 
many, or by this impartation of sanative virtue and 
vital force, he delivered multitudes from diseased 
states of mind and body. Thus men were saved by 
him, not by his death, as men have blindly supposed, 
but as Paul avers, "much more by his life" (Rom. v. 
10.) He employed, in his benevolent mission to the 
unhappy and suffering, all the means through which 
life is transmissible from one person to another — the 
imposition of han4s, the silent sphere of his mind, the 
going forth of his love for them in prayer, and he 
used the spiritual power of words. There have been 
those, in every age of the world, who have, to a more 
limited extent, done the same. His cures were none 
of them miracles, in the theological sense, but were 
effected in harmony with laws that are operative 
to-day. The word miracle signifies what excites won- 
der, from the Latin verb miror, to be astonished. 
And wonder is the child of ignorance. As soon as 
any phenomenon is understood, and we come to an 
apprehension of the laws that govern it, it ceases to 
be a wonder. Miracles belong only to a dark age, — 
to a wicked and adulterous generation. They disap- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 241 

pear before the light of science, like birds of night 
at the approach of day. 

The Kings of England, for many centuries, employ- 
ed the vital magnetism of the hand for the care of 
scrofula, and with a success that seemed to an igno- 
rant age miraculous. No one would now suppose 
that the power to cure a person of a scrofulous diathe- 
sis by imparting vital force to the action of the 
excreting organs through the magnetism of the 
hands, was a prerogative confined to royality. Hun- 
dreds of others, both in civilized and savage nations, 
have effected the cure of disease in the same way. 
Love is the life of man — the inmost vital force of his 
organism. To apply the hands to a diseased part, 
or to the nerve-conductor leading to it, or to the 
point of the brain with which it is in sympathetic 
connection, with a benevolent wish to effect the 
necessary change, and restore it to a healthy state, by 
either increasing or diminishing its vital action, 
imparts to it a spiritual force, which affects its phy- 
siological motions, and tends to produce the desired 
result. This is effected in proportion to the purity 
and strength of the love, in which the healing effort 
has its birth, and of which the kind wish is only a 
modification. But love acts by wisdom. To attain 
the highest success in this mode of cure, a person 



242 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

must know what the pathological state of the organs 
is in disease, and what change it is necessary to 
effect in their action in order to restore the body to 
a healthy condition. He must have an accurate 
knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the 
nervous system, the connection of the various bodily 
organs with the brain, and of the nature of those 
spiritual disturbances and morbid mental states that 
underlie all diseased conditions of the bodily organ- 
ism. It is emphatically true of this system of medi- 
cal treatment, that knowledge is power. Faith, 
both in the operator and patient, is desirable. It is 
a spiritual force that has accomplished wonders. 
The power of faith, of which we might give numer- 
ous illustrations, drawn from the recorded facts of 
ancient and modern times, in restoring both mind 
and body to a healthy state, and the law that governs 
its action and influence, are but poorly understood 
by the world at large. It is a subject worthy of in- 
vestigation by thinking minds. It is an element of 
strength in the will, — and an essential ingredient in 
a sound and harmonious mental state, aud thus neces- 
sary to a restoration to life and health. It is an actual 
psychological or spiritual force. To believe that we 
can do a thing, especially if that faith is the result of 
an understanding of nature's laws, empowers us to 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 243 

do it. To believe that we are well, or that we are 
becoming so, excites a spiritual force within us, that 
goes far towards making us so. If we firmly believe 
that a certain remedy will cure us of a diseased con- 
dition, though it may have no chemical adaptation 
to the removal of the disorder, we shall be benefitted 
by it. Disease has often been cured by faith alone 
in the patient. The familiar case of the woman 
mentioned in the Gospel history, who had suffered 
for twelve years from a dangerous uterine hemor- 
rhage, baffling the skill of various physicians, is 
known to all. She undoubtingly believed that if she 
could touch the hem of Jesus' garment she would be 
restored. With this assured faith, amounting to a 
certainty in her mind, which comes next to knowledge, 
she touched the fringe of his outer robe, and hex faith, 
and nothing else, made her whole. This was no mira- 
cle, but only the natural triumph of the mind over the 
morbid condition of the body. The same cause will 
produce the same effect now, for whatever takes 
place in harmony with the laws of our being, belongs 
to all ages and all lands. The lack of faith is the 
loss of one of the essential elements of a sound mental 
state, which underlies, as a foundation, a healthy 
bodily condition. In the magnetic or psychological 
healer, it is a positive mental force ; in the patient, a 



244 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

receptive mental state. But however valuable it 
may be, knowledge is better. An undoubting belief is 
what we call certainty, but it should be based upon 
a positive knowledge of the laws by which a desired 
result is effected. God created and still creates the 
world by wisdom. Love can only operate sucess- 
fully through the intellect. There are two things in 
a patient necessary to the reception of a spiritual 
sanative influence. One is a desire to get well. 
The other is a faith in the efficiency of the remedial 
agency. Without these two, the cure of disease by 
any mode of treatment, is, to say the least, if not im- 
possible, exceedingly difficult. To put to the patient 
the questions, Wilt thou be made whole ? and, 
Believest thou that I am able to do this for thee? 
is of more importance than to feel the pulse, or ex- 
amine the state of the mucous surface of the tongue. 
Unless an honest affirmative answer can be given to 
both inquiries, the case may be dismissed, or be treat- 
ed with pure water drops, or cracker pills, or homeo- 
pathic pellets. The only sure thing about the case 
will be the entry of the fee upon the physician's 
books, or into his pocket. 

The influence of faith in the cure of disease is well 
illustrated by a fact mentioned in Paris's Life of Sir 
Humphrey Davy. In the early period of his Scientific 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 245 

career, Davy was assisting Dr. Beddoes in his experi- 
ments on the inhalation of nitrous oxide. Dr. Beddoes, 
thinking the oxide must be a specific for paralysis, a 
patient, was selected for trial and placed under the 
care of Sir Humphrey. Before administering the gas, 
wishing to ascertain the temperature of the palsied 
man's blood, a small thermometer was inserted under 
his tongue. The paralytic, wholy ignorant of the 
process to which he was to be subjected, but deeply 
impressed, by Dr. Beddoes, with the certainty of its suc- 
cess, no sooner felt the thermometer between his teeth, 
than he concluded that the talismanic influence was at 
work, and in a burst of enthusiasm declared he felt its 
healing power through his whole body. Here was an 
opportunity to test the influence of the mind in the cure 
of palsy that was not to be lost. The gas was not used, 
but on the following day, the thermometer was again 
employed with equally marked effects; and at the 
end of two weeks the patient was dismissed cured, 
no remedy of any kind having ever been used except 
the thermometer. His faith made him whole, not 
by accident, nor by a miracle, but by an invariable 
law of our being. So important a principle ought 
not to be ignored by medical science, and left to ig- 
norant quacks, who often perform astonishing cures 
by means of it. 



246 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

Fear is the opposite of faith, and produces equally 
striking effects in the generation of diseased condi- 
tions of the body. Many facts of this kind have 
been collected to illustrate what is falsely called the 
influence of the imagination. Persons have been shot 
dead with blank cartridges. A familiar fact is that 
of the Edinburg criminal who died from a supposed 
loss of blood, when it was only warm water that 
was made to trickle over his arm after it was barely 
pricked by the surgeons. Dr. Moore mentions the 
case of a lady who died with every symptom of hy- 
drophobia, under the mistaken notion that she had 
been bitten by a rabid dog, when it was demonstra- 
ble that the animal had only torn her dress. One of 
the most instructive and satisfactory experiments on 
record, showing the influence of the mind in the gen- 
eration of fatal diseases, is that tried upon four Rus- 
sian criminals, who had been condemned to death for 
political offences. It was reported in the London Med- 
ical Times. The cholera was raging at the time in 
Russia, and the criminals, while ignorant of the fact, 
were made to occupy beds on which persons had re- 
cently died with the disease. Although thus expos- 
ed to the contagion, not one of them exhibited the 
least symptom of the malady. After this they were 
told that they must sleep on beds that had been oc- 



THE MENTAL- CURE. 247 

cupied by persons who had been sick with the cholera. 
But in fact, the beds were entirely new, and had never 
been used by any one. Their fear proved to be a more 
powerful influence than the contagion, for three out of 
the four took the disease in its most fatal form, and 
died in four hours after the attack. Such a fact, com- 
ing as it does to us well authenticated, speaks volumes 
in favor of the doctrine of the spiritual origin of dis- 
ease, and the efficiency of psychical remedies. But 
the current medical science, while convinced of the 
truth of this, makes no practical use of it as a reme- 
dial agency. Yet it is an interesting fact, that the 
longer a man has been engaged in the practice of 
the healing art, the less confidence he has in medici- 
nal compounds, and the more he relies upon the vis 
medicatrix naturae, and upon the principles of Mental 
Hygiene. An aged physcian recently informed the 
author of a remarkable cure he had accomplished 
upon a nervous patient by the potent virtues of 
clear water, tinged with rosemary, a few drops of 
which were taken before each meal. Her restora- 
tion was complete and apparently permament. Faith 
is so essential a condition in the cure of disease, that 
in Nazareth and the adjacent region, Jesus could do 
but few mighty works, because of the unbelief of the 
people. (Matt. xiii. 58.) The reason assigned by him 



248 THE MENTAL-CORE. 

for the disciples' want of success in curing the lunatic 
child, was their unbelief, showing that faith is an 
element of power in him who would heal diseases of 
body and mind by the psychological method of treat- 
ment. ( Matt. xvii. 14—20.) 

The life of the body, or the force by means of 
which the vital movements are accomplished, is heat, 
— not a mere dead caloric, but a heat generated by 
the spiritual principle. The living forces of the hu- 
man system and animal heat, are now believed by 
physiologists to be correlative, or are mutually trans- 
mutable and interchangeable. A direct relation cer- 
tainly exists between them. M. Jules, and M. Serres, 
Prof. Faraday, and other scientists, have demonstrated 
the identity of heat and mechanical force. They are 
correlative and equivalant to each other. In the an- 
imal mechanism the same law holds good. If the liv- 
ing force of the body is heat — a heat that is the cor- 
respondent of the love — then all those means by which 
heat is generated and transmitted from one body to 
another, become the means of communicating life, and 
are a therapeutical agency. Among these may be 
mentioned friction. If your hands are cold, you rub 
them till the vital action is restored. If your child's 
hands are cold, you use the same means to warm 
them. The amount of heat generated in this way is 



THE MENTAL-CURB. 249 

proportioned to the force employed. If we feel a pain 
in any part, our first impulse is to place the hand upon 
it. By this means the accumulation of vital heat 
in the tissue is soon diminished, being conducted into 
the hand, and conveyed to another part of the system. 
The hand of another person would be equally or still 
more efficient. In this way we have cured a burn, or 
allayed the most painful inflammations, in a short time. 
To place the hand upon any part of the body of an- 
other person, creates a tendency in the vital force of 
both toward the point of contact. This is perceived 
as an increased glow of vital heat. If the part be 
cold and negative it soon becomes warm, and exhibits 
an augmented vascular action. These are nature's 
remedies, prescribed by our intuitions and instincts, 
and are as efficient as they are natural. Compression 
produces heat. A piece of cold wood subjected to a 
powerful hydraulic pressure is immediately warmed. 
Percussion generates heat, or the force expended in 
the act is transmuted into the thermal force. A piece 
of cold iron on an anvil, struck by a hammer, is 
warmed. This principle seems to have been employ- 
ed in the remotest ages as a curative agency. We 
have a wort published at Frankfort in 1698 entitled 
"Curious account of how Blows will often Cure, 
promptly and well, all kinds of Chronic Diesases." 



250 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

The prophet Elisha manifestly employed this means 
in the cure of disease. The Syrian general who 
came to him to be healed of his leprosy, supposed he 
was going to "smite his hand over the place" and 
thus cure him. But why should he have expected 
this treatment unless it was common in that region 
of country ? 

Motion is correlated to life. The movement of a 
part determines the vital force to the part moved. 
All motions, passive or active, generate heat. A 
person riding in a cold day is warmer than he would 
be to sit still in the open air. Water poured from 
one vessel to another, or made to revolve in a cylin- 
der, is warmed. This has been shown by the ther- 
mometer. It has been estimated that the falls of 
the Rhine generate enough heat in one day to melt 
twelve thousand metres of ice. All the movements 
employed in the system of Ling, especially the so 
called duplicated movements, or those where the pa- 
tient is passive — the frictions, vibrations, compres- 
sions, percussions— arc efficient therapeutic agencies. 
We have employed the system for several years in 
the treatment of the various forms of chronic derange- 
ments of the body, and with a success that has some- 
times seemed to those who did not understand the 
laws that govern it, to border on the miraculous. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 251 

But we have always supposed that it owed a great 
part of its efficiency to an impartation of vital mag- 
netism, from the operator to the patient, an opinion 
entertained by the German practitioners of the art. 
They adopt Reichenbach's theory of the odic force, 
and assert that an influence of this kind is actually 
communicated to the system of the patient. The 
nervous energy of the invalid is thereby exalted, and 
the reaction of the vital powers against disease great- 
ly increased. Dally gives a beautiful drawing of the 
human hand in its minute and microscopic anatomy, 
showing that it is an instrument skillfully adapted to 
perform the office, as a part of its physiological func- 
tions, of imparting something like vital magnetism to 
another person, and argues that an important advan- 
tage is derived by the invalid from this transmission 
of life. We are convinced of the correctness of this 
theory. It is in perfect harmony with the principles 
and laws unfolded in this work. 

But there is manifestly an agency concerned in the 
cure of disease, far more subtle and potent than the 
semi-spiritual odic force, — a psychological influence. 
This acts upon the mind of the patient, thence upon 
the spiritual body, and through this upon the mate- 
rial organism. The law of its action, is from within 
outward. The living forces of the system are spirit- 



252 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

ual. And there is a direct and potential influence of 
mind upon mind. This goes to the root of all diseas- 
ed conditions, and carries a remedial agency into the 
realm of causation. There is a variety of phenom- 
ena, passing under the names of Mesmerism, Psychol- 
ogy, Biology, Animal Magnetism, Pathetism, Hypno- 
tism, and even Psychometry, that are reducible to 
one general principle, — the influence or action of 
mind upon mind, and the communication of spiritual 
life from one person to another, who is negatively 
receptive of it. 

If all diseases originate in some disturbed or in- 
harmonious mental states, which ultimate themselves 
in corresponding bodily conditions, it becomes a 
question of primal importance how to induce upon a 
patient, as a permanent possession, the stat3 of mind 
which is the opposite of that causing the disease. 
Is there any law that governs in effecting such a 
spiritual conversion or metamorphosis ? There is a 
sort of polarity about our feelings as well as about 
the different organs of the body. In fact it is com- 
ing to be recognized by science that polarity is a 
universal property of things, belonging to the atom 
as well as to the world. Even light has polarity. 
And by transmitting it through certain substances, 
as a bundle of thin glass plates or certain crystals, a 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 253 

change is effected in the direction of the vibratory- 
wave, which inverts its polarity. Gravitation may- 
be only the attraction between the positive and nega- 
tive forces of things. Something analogous to it 
belongs to spiritual essences. There are what may 
with propriety be called positive and negative states 
of the mind, and a dual action of the feelings. There 
may be a loss of balance here, or an inverted action 
of every faculty and of its organ in the brain — as 
faith and fear. The one is positive ; the other nega- 
tive. The mind employs the same part of the cere- 
brum in the outward manifestation of the two dis- 
tinct sentiments or feelings. Or fear and anxiety 
are the inverted action of faith. All the organs 
may undergo this transposition of their forces. In 
some cases of insanity, which we have had under 
treatment, the patients have exhibited an inverted 
action of the social instincts, so that those they once 
loved the most, become correspondingly repugnant 
to them. In the action of conscience, there may be 
approval or condemnation. There may be mirthful- 
ness or sadness. But the same organ in the brain is 
used in the manifestation of both feelings, only one 
is a positive and the other a negative action. The 
same may be said of hope and despondency. The 
predominance of the latter over the former consti- 



254 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

tntes the negative state of the former, or its invert- 
ed action. In the case of a magnet, if there should 
be this transposition of its forces, how could it be 
restored to its normal state ? Or if there should be 
a loss of balance and equilibrium between the posi- 
tive and negative poles, how could the harmony be 
re-established ? We have only to bring the negative 
pole in contact with the positive pole of another 
magnet, and it attracts into itself the appropriate 
magnetism, and becomes charged with it. So of the 
other pole. In a similiar way, a negative or evil 
mental state may be made to give place to a positive 
or good one. The magnetic or spiritual healer 
should approach the patient's mind on the side of its 
disturbance, and if he desires to be relieved, his mind 
will attract into itself, with all the force of a hungry 
sympathy, the feelings and thoughts of the operator. 
The good-will also of the physician, his benevolent 
wish to impart his own better mental states will assist 
and facilitate the process of spiritual induction. 

Nearly every thing in science is now explained by 
the theory of vibration, especially the phenomena ot 
the imponderable forces — light, heat, color, electricity, 
and magnetism. If two strings of equal length are 
set to vibrating, but not in harmony, there will be a 
tendency in them to a perfect sameness and oneness 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 255 

of movement. And if they can be made to continue 
their motions, they will soon both vibrate at the same 
distance and in the same time. Further still, if two 
strings be stretched parallel to each other, and one 
be caused to vibrate, it will instantly communicate its 
motion to the other. In a way analogous to this, one 
mind may induce upon another mind its own emotions, 
its thoughts and feelings. Our love is our life, and 
the exeitement of the love is a spiritual motion. If a 
patient is afflicted with certain abnormal feelings or 
mental states, whose depressing influence has caused 
his diseased condition, and if he desires to be deliver- 
ed from the spiritual causes of his physical disorder, 
let him submit himself to the magnetic treatment of 
some kind and sympathetic friend. He should be 
passive like the unmoved string. Then the move- 
ments of the operator's mind, his emotions and affec- 
tional states, will be communicated to him. The 
effect will be permanent also. One mind may da- 
guerreotype itself upon another. It may make an 
ineffaceable impression upon it, and effect a lasting 
metamorphosis in it. Just as certainly as one harp 
played upon, will cause another standing by it, to 
sound also, so certainly, and by an unerring law ot 
our spiritual nature, one mind, by a sort of- mysteri- 
ous vibration, will communicate its mental forces to 



256 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

another mind. Under the proper conditions, we 
need have no doubt of producing the desired result. 
There is no miracle here, no departure from law, any 
more than in the phenomena we have mentioned as 
illustrations. Both are natural, and we may be as 
certain of the desired result in one case as the other. 

In this way, Jesus healed the sick, first the mind, 
then the body. He removed the spiritual cause of 
disease, and the physical effect ceased. He carried 
his sanative influence into both departments of our 
being, the inner and the outer. This was done by 
the law of sympathy — a law of the mind that means 
more than the world has ever understood. By it one 
mind transmits its states of feeling and modes of 
thought to another, and oftentimes without intend- 
ing it. Jesus thus imparted to the sick and wretched 
the calm happiness of his own loving and gentle 
heart. His habitual mental condition, when commu- 
nicated to the afflicted, was the panacea for all their 
spiritual abnormality. His mind was a perfect har- 
mony, everywhere exactly balanced, and thus con- 
tained in itself all that any one, however wretched, 
needed to restore his soul to soundness and health. 
Hence his cures were mostly, if not always, instan- 
taneous. 

If we, who make but a distant approach to the 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 257 

perfection of character exhibited by Jesus, can not 
instantaneously cure every form of mental and bodily 
disorder, we can do it more slowly, but as surely, if 
we are moved by the same love. The little we 
impart of mental good and sanative influence, will 
propagate and diffuse itself like leaven, until the 
whole mental nature of the patient is changed and 
becomes homogeneous with it. A little contagion, 
though it be but an infinitesimal amount, will multi- 
ply itself and propagate itself, until the whole system 
is assimilated to it. But a person may be inoculated 
with health as well as with disease. All contagions 
operate through the spiritual essence in them. Some 
false notion imbibed, some groundless fear, often lies 
at the bottom of chronic disease. It predisposes the 
outward organism to a state of things in harmony 
with it, for there is a conatus in both the soul and 
body to adjust themselves to each other, so as to be in 
agreement. One false notion, somehow acquired, 
will work like leaven, until the mind of the recipient 
is changed, and his whole life modified by it. Thus 
Jesus, understanding this law of mental impregna- 
tion, and the tendency of any thought or feeling to 
diffuse and propagate itself, charged his disciples to 
beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, referring to 
their false and pernicious notions. If the evil and 



258 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

the false work such changes, why may not the good 
and the true produce still greater and diviner results ? 
"The kingdom of heaven is like leaven (as well as the 
false doctrines of Pharisees), which a woman took 
and hid in three measures of meal until the whole 
was leavened." But the highest heaven is only the 
greatest degree of love, and the most exalted range 
of the intellect. If heaven he in us, we may impart 
it to others, and it will prove like leaven in the flour 
— it will spread until the whole soul is assimilated to 
it. i We may avail ourselves of these hitherto hidden 
laws of our spiritual essence in the cure of mental 
and physical disorders. As mankind become more 
elevated in the intellectual scale, the remedial agen- 
cies employed by them, will become less gross and 
material, and more spiritual. Doctrines that once 
were satisfactory and useful to the mind of man, can- 
not now nourish his inner life. So remedies, that 
people once used without injury, and perhaps with 
benefit, in the present advanced stage of the develop- 
ment of the race, are no longer adapted to the cure 
of disease. The New Age demands not only a bet- 
ter theology and philosophy, but a more spiritual sys- 
tem of medication. 



THE MENTAL-CUKE. 259 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE MIND NOT LIMITED BY SPACE IN THE 
TRANSMISSION OF PSYCHOLOGICAL AND 
SANATIVE INFLUENCES. 

Freedom of the Mind from Spatial Restraint — Spiritual 
Presence. — Mental Locomotion. — Physiological Influ- 
ence of Psychological Impressions. — Transmission of Men- 
tal Force. — The Model Man and Great Physician. — 
Sis freedom from Material Limitations. — The Interior 
State intensely Positive. — The Prayer Care. — The Laws 
governing it. — Love the Healing Power. — The Mind to he 
first Sealed. — The Mystery of the Cures vjrought by Jesus 
explained. — Sow to Convert Souls luithout a Miracle. 
— Nature of the Mental Sphere. — Sealing at a Distance. 
— The Laws by which it is Effected. — Directions given in 
regard to it. — Communication of abnormal States by Sym- 
pathy. — Practical Value of the Law. 

IT IS one of the peculiar properties of mind, or 
spiritual essence, that it is not subject to the 
limitations of time and space. These are the essen- 
tial conditions of what we call matter. It exists in 
time and fills space, and is limited to the space it ocu- 
pies. But the human spirit is free from this confine- 



260 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

ment and restraint. In the realm of spirit, time and 
space are not objective realities, but subjective states, 
or as Kant expresses it, " forms of the intellect." 
It can be present, really and substantially, with those 
who are miles away. It is a common form of expres- 
sion, not originated by Paul, but arising from an 
intuitive recognition of its mysterious nature and 
powers, that we are present in spirit with certain 
loved ones, though absent from them in body. Not 
that our souls actually leave their bodies, for the con- 
nection between them is never dissolved but once, but 
our mental presence and force seem to go forth to a 
distance, and break loose from all spatial restraints. 
For in another world the spirit moves not so much 
by a passing from one point of space to another, as 
by a change of state, and a transference of its force. 
In this way we may appear to ourselves to journey 
miles away, until we are present with some distant 
person. Sometimes the intervening objects and scene- 
ry pass in review, and may be described. We may 
influence the thoughts and feelings of the distant one, 
with whom we come into rapport, which is only a 
spiritual presence and conjunction of two minds, in 
the same way, it is to be presumed, that one spirit 
acts upon and into another spirit in the world above. 
We often feel an indefinable sense of the presence of 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 261 

persons, both those who are still living in the flesh, 
and those who have passed to the inner sphere of life. 
This is something most real, and not the working of 
what we call imagination. It usually occurs in con- 
nection with those with whom we are in sympathy. 
Through the impression made upon the spirit, the 
body, or any of its organs, may be affected. For all 
psychological influences effect a change in the physiological 
movements. In this way life may be infused into any 
weakened part, pains may be dispersed, and inflamma- 
tions and congestions relieved. When examining a 
patient hundreds of miles away, we have sometimes 
been sensibly affected with their diseased state both 
of mind and body. Once where the patient was 
troubled with almost perpetual nausea, it occasioned 
vomiting in us. Such effects are common in psycho- 
metrical examinations. If a patient can thus affect a 
physician, not merely with mental impressions, but in 
a moment modify the functional action of the bodily 
organs, can he not influence the patient as well ? 
Availing himself of this mental law and force, he can 
affect the physiological action of any organ in the 
body. We have found many cases where this mode 
of treatment was even more efficient than the ordina- 
ry magnetic manipulations. We devoted more than 
a year to the study of the laws that govern this trans- 



262 TUB MENTAL-CURE. 

mission of vital force to a distance, and to experi- 
ments with it. Most of the experiments made in psy- 
chology have been of a trivial nature, and of no oth- 
er value than the proof they afford of the existence 
of a law of action and reaction between minds at a 
distance. Our experiments were entered upon, not so 
much with the desire to establish the reality of such 
an influence of mind upon mind, as to see if it could 
not be turned to some important hygienic use. This 
has been satisfactorily demonstrated, and it has 
proved itself to be a sanative agency to an extent far 
beyond our expectations. Many quite desperate 
cases of chronic disease have been cured in this, to 
some incredible way, in a few days. The rest of this 
volume could be filled with authenticated facts in re- 
lation to marvelous cures by the use of no other reme- 
dial agency. But we have deemed it better, at least 
it is more in consonance with our feelings, to imitate 
the great Physician, and say to the patients thus 
healed and loosed from their infirmities, "See thou 
tell no man." Certificates of wonderful cures and 
advertisements of miraculous gifts, spring more from 
a desire to make money out of the sufferings of hu- 
manity, than a desire to do good to the souls and 
bodies of men. They are no reliable evidence of an 
ability to cure " all manner of sickness and disease 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 263 

among the people," but sometimes indicate a lack of 
that pure, unselfish love which is the only healing 
power. The great forces of nature are silent in their 
operation, and make but little show or noise. It 
does not come within the scope of the present vol- 
ume, to make an encyclopedia of facts, but to unfold 
the principles and the philosophy of all the individual 
facts that could be collected under the various sub- 
jects treated of. We hold to the heresy that princi- 
ples come before facts in the true order of mental 
growth, and the knowledge of things in their causes, 
is of more worth than a recognition of effects. This 
we acknowledge is not the Baconian method of phi- 
losophizing. 

Jesus of Nazareth possessed the power of transfer- 
ring his mental presence and spiritual force through 
any extent of spatial distance, and in a degree never 
witnessed before in the world. It is the highest 
glory of a disciple to be like the Master or Teacher. 
lie speaks of being in heaven even while he dwelt bodi- 
ly on the earth. "No man hath ascended up to hea- 
ven, but he that came down from heaven, even the son 
man who is in heaven." The import of these words 
is, that while on earth his soul had risen to a truly 
spiritual life. He inner selfhood was not in bondage 
to material limitations, but was subject to the laws 



264 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

that govern human nature in the spiritual world, and 
having attained to the exalted privileges of the other 
and inner life, was invested with the powers of a pure 
spirit. His interior manhood, thus made capable of 
acting independently of the bodily instrument, and 
freed from material limitations, read the very thoughts 
of men ; told them, as in the case of Nathaniel, secret 
facts in their past life ; and sometimes disclosed the 
future, by a piercing glance into the realm of causa- 
tion. In a word, though possessed of a material body, 
the inner man was emancipated from material thral- 
dom, and asserted its supremacy. In this state, he 
cured disease, often without touching the patient. 
His spirit acted directly upon the living spirit of the 
diseased, and thus acted upon the cause of the exter- 
nal pathological condition. Just in proportion as 
any one attains to the state exhibited by him, can he 
cure diseases of mind and body as he did. We wish 
to steer clear of all theological speculations and con- 
troversies, and shall enter upon no discussion as to the 
nature of Jesus, nor cry, Ecce Homo, nor Ecce Deus, 
nor Ecce Deus-Homo, though we cannot well avoid 
the confession of our faith in him, as the one and only 
God made flesh, and dwelling among us. One thing all 
theories and creeds admit, — and this is the only truth 
wo care now to deal with — that he had a complete 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 265 

human nature, which passed through a perfectly hu- 
man development from its birth to its glorification 
and ascension. And what the divine nature did for 
him, it is willing to do for us, in a degree, and we 
may be glorified or spiritulized with him. This i s 
certainly the teaching of the New Testament. 

The interior state of which we are speaking is not 
a negative one, but is intensely positive toward all 
on a lower plane. It is a state receptive of spiritual 
influx, of life and light from the celestial realms, 
but is positive and communicative towards those who 
are only in the sensuous degree of the mind's action. 
It is a position of great spiritual power. The lower 
plane of being is always negatively passive to the 
spiritual world. So persons, elevated or unfolded to 
the state we have described, are positive towards 
those on a lower and less spiritual plane. 

In harmony with the laws that govern in the action 
of mind upon mind, prayer avails for the cure of dis- 
ease, and would be a more common and efficient reme- 
dial agency, if there was more faith among men in 
the reality and power of spiritual influences. Prayer 
for another, in its essence, is a desire for the good 
and happiness of its object. It is one of the forms 
in which a genuine neighborly love or charity is 
expressed, and it always affects the niiud of him who 



266 THE MENTAL-CUKE. 

is the subject of our intercessions. It is only an- 
other illustration of the action of one spirit upon 
another. Among the early Christians, it was a com- 
mon practice in the cure of diseased states of mind 
and body. (James v. 14, 15.) And no good reason 
can be assigned why it should not be as efficient 
to-day as it was eighteen centuries ago. We have 
known several persons who devoted themselves to 
this method of cure, and with a success that put to 
shame more material, but less rational and efficacious 
methods of medication. If disease has a spiritual 
origin, and its causes are found in preexisting disor- 
dered mental states, Proseuchopathy, or the prayer- 
cure, is as well adapted to the removal of the prior 
pathological condition of the inner man, as Allopathy, 
or Hydropathy, or Homeopathy. A return to the 
pure unselfish love and undoubting faith of the 
primitive church, would restore to favor again this 
efficient spiritual remedy for disease. The Seeress of 
Prevorst, characterized for her unassuming piety and 
ardent christian love, in this way cured the Countess 
Yon Maldeghem of insanity and bodily disease. 

The power to cure disease by spiritual forces is 
found in the divine principle of love. Just so far as 
any one receives into himself the pure unselfish love 
of God, — a love that in him is an irrepressible desire 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 267 

to communicate good, — so far there is in him a power 
to impart life and health and peace to others. There 
is lodged within him a fraction of the divine omnipo- 
tence. So far as he is calmly and humbly conscious 
of this divine element within him, has he power to 
do the works of God. Love is the life of all; it is 
the life of God; it is the divinest and most poten- 
tial thing in the universe. If a man has attained to 
the life of love, having risen above all selfish consider- 
ations as controlling motives of conduct, and is filled 
with an all-absorbing divine longing to impart good 
to every human being, and has a faith rooted in love, 
his slightest touch is healing. His very presence is 
fraught with sanative influences. His sphere is a 
life-giving emanative energy. This healthy spiritual 
life is communicated by actual material contact, or 
the action of his mind upon others in the distance. 
It is a law of our being, and we cannot escape from 
its operation, that every time we think of an absent 
person we affect them for good or evil. 

In studying the cures wrought by Jesus, one is 
struck with the apparent ease with which he over 
came every diseased condition. The secret of this 
seems to be, he healed first the mind, going to the 
secret mental state as the cause, and on removing 
this, the effect or correspondent bodily condition 



268 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

ceased at once. The suddenness with which this 
takes place may be illustrated in this way. If in a 
fracture of the skull a portion of the cranium presses 
upon the brain, the patient is deprived of conscious- 
ness. The external manifestations of the mind are 
by this cause suspended. But as soon as the cere- 
brum is relieved of this pressure, consciousness is 
restored. Just so soon, in most cases, when the men- 
tal state, underlying any diseased condition, is changed 
to the normal one, the outward pathological state 
ceases. An effect cannot exist when its cause no 
longer acts. In this way Christ carried his healing 
power into the realm of spiritual causes. He addressed 
himself as a spirit to the spirit of the patient. If we 
understand all that is implied in this, and can go and 
do likewise, diseases of long standing will yield at 
once to the potent energy of our love. This may 
be effected at a distance, as well as in the presence of 
the unhappy sufferer. The greatest difficulty in the 
cure of a disease, is in coming to the perception of 
the interior cause, and in finding how to remove it. 
Independent clairvoyance or intuition is adequate to 
the first, and magnetism, using the term not merely 
for mesmerism, but for the law by which mind com- 
municates its spiritual states and forces to another, 
is equal to the latter result. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 269 

In our verbal communications with a patient, we 
should forget that he has any material body, and 
speak as a spirit to his spirit. Here is a source of 
power that is overlooked. We generally speak to 
each other's body, and think of nothing else. The 
reverse of this should be true. If we approach a pa- 
tient as if he were a spirit, abstracting the mind from 
the mere perception of his outward organism, and 
approach him with our interior manhood, the living 
soul, as if we were a spirit, then the better mental 
state, which is always the stronger, will prevail over 
and suppress the other and weaker. This is as certain 
as in a combat of physical strength between two 
gymnasts, the stronger and more skillful of the two 
will overcome the other. In this way the patient is 
renewed in mind, the inner man. He is spiritually 
healed. The hidden cause of his malady being re- 
moved, the spirit being restored to health, the body 
with all its living, moving forces, soon becomes adjus- 
ted to the new order of things that exists within. 
We must induce upon the patient a new mental 
state, and supplant the old mode of feeling and 
thought. We must give him in a proper sense, a 
new spiritual birth, or at least impregnate him with 
a better interior life. We must convert him. Such men- 
tal changes are sometimes permanent. In the popular 



270 THE MENTAL-CORE. 

revivals, where men's souls are addressed, and where 
they almost forget that their hearers have such a 
thing as a physical body, lasting mental changes are 
wrought. The convert receives an impulse, an influ- 
ence, an impression, that changes the whole current 
of his inner life. It remains for weeks, for months, 
for years, and often through the rest of his earthly 
existence. There is nothing supernatural or miracu- 
lous in this, and we have nothing to say against it. 
Good may come out of it. It is in perfect harmony 
with the spiritual laws that govern us. The united 
effort of the minister and of those in sympathy with 
him, being directed to the production or induction of 
a new mental state upon the " anxious " or " peni- 
tent," they generally succeed in effecting the desired 
result, the conversion or change of the soul. They 
might do it much easier, if they were good magneti- 
zers, and understood the laws that control the action 
of mind upon mind. The most susceptible and pas- 
sive natures make the easiest converts, and the men 
who have the most magnetic power, as it is called, 
are the most successful revivalists. There is no need 
to call to our aid any supernatural iufluences to ac- 
count for such spiritual metamorphoses. The laws of 
our mental nature are adequate to produce and 
explain all such phenomena. The minister and the 



THE MENTAL- CURE. 271 

church induce upon the convert their own mental 
state. They impart their own mental life, their 
modes of thought and affection to him. There is 
nothing more miraculous in this, or out of the usual 
order of things in the world of mind, than there is 
when a bar of steel, bent in the form of a horse-shoe, 
is brought in contact with a powerful electro-magnet, 
and is made thereby permanently magnetic. All 
forms of religion effect such mental transformations, 
both the evangelical and the heretical. Mahometans, 
Shakers, Adventists, and even Mormons," do so with 
their enchantments." And the law by which it is 
done is available to change the habitual mental state 
of a patient, and is legitimately used for such a pur- 
pose. To effect such an interior change should be 
the first aim of an intelligent and benevolent physi- 
cian. He should be a spiritual midwife to assist the 
inner man to a birth into a higher and happier life. 
We have shown that the sphere which goes forth 
from every human spirit is not an emission into space 
of spiritual particles, but is analogous to the action 
of the radiant forces, heat, light, and electricity. 
These are now explained by the theory of vibration. 
When a message is telegraphed from New York to 
London, no imponderable fluid shoots along the wire, 
but there is only the transmission of force, a vibra- 



272 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

tory wave in an elastic medium called the ether. So 
when one mind acts upon another mind, and influ- 
ences its thoughts and feelings, when the bodies they 
animate are separated by hundreds of leagues, the 
effect is produced in a similar way. There is only a 
transmission of mental force, and the action and re- 
action of one spirit upon another. This vibratory 
movement takes place in an all-pervading, every- 
where present element far more refined, elastic, and 
subtle, than the ether. It is a semi-spiritual essence 
that fills all space, which has been denominated 
the aura, the atmosphere of the inner world. It 
is the medium through which mind acts upon 
mind, and also upon matter. By means of it, 
mental and vital force is transmissible to unlimited 
distances. This law of action and reaction, between 
mind and mind, explains the phenomena of fas- 
cination or charming, which is only the transmis- 
sion of spiritual force from one being to another. 
When an animal is thus enchanted by another, their 
life becomes so interblended, that an injury inflicted 
upon the charmer, is felt by the other, and the kill- 
ing of the fascinating animal sometimes proves in- 
stant death to the captive. When one person, by a 
psychological influence, is magnetized or entranced 
by another, any effect the operator produces upon 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 273 

himself, is communicated to the subject. Their life 
seems to be intermingled. An unseen bat potent 
influence takes possession of the mind of the subject, 
and controls its actions. Here is a power that can 
be turned to good account, or perverted to evil. It 
can be made an efficient agency in the system of 
mental hygiene, under the direction of good men and 
angels, or it can be perverted to witchcraft and de- 
moniacal obsessions. For these invisible forces are 
controllable by spirits either in the flesh or disrobed 
of their mortal covering. They may take advan- 
tage of these natural laws, and greatly aid in pro- 
ducing the desired benevolent result. 

Let us see how this law may be employed in com- 
municating a sanative influence, and remedial force. 
To think of another, interiorly and abstractly, occa- 
sions a spiritual presence, and his image seems to stand 
before us. Where the thought is grounded in love 
and good-will, it causes an interior conjunction — a 
mental sympathy, a state of rapport. By it they 
come into a living communication, as real as it would 
be if they reached through the intervening space and 
grasped each other by the hand. The feelings of 
each are communicated to the other. The mental 
state of the one who is the most positive will predomi- 
nate, and take possesion of the other, for the stronger 



274 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 



force will prevail over the weaker. Thus a healthier 
mental state will be induced upon the patient. This 
spirito-magnetic influence can be transmitted inde- 
pendently of spatial distance. We have experimented 
with it at a distance of over a thousand miles, and 
once between New Hampshire and Louisiana. The 
patient should assume an easy and quiet position, and 
be as passive and undisturbed as possible. The time 
may be agreed upon between them. It is well for 
him to be in a room by himself, which is to be but 
little lighted. For darkness, being a negative state 
of the surrounding atmosphere, is favorable to psy- 
chological influences and impressions, and renders the 
body more passively susceptible. The room also, in 
which the patient is, should be only moderately heat- 
ed. When in the state of spiritual presence and con- 
junctive sympathy, any effect the operator may pro- 
duce upon himself, or which he receives by influx from 
spiritual presences, will be telegraphed instantly to 
the patient. If he applies his hand to his fore-brain, 
as if to remove a catarrhal inflammation, it produces 
the same effect upon the patient. Sometimes such 
manipulations upon the operator's person affect the 
patient a hundred miles away, in as great a degree 
as they would were he bodily Tpresent,and are sometimes 
as sensibly felt. They affect the spiritual body, which 
is the seat of sensation. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 275 

Instead of applying his hands to himself, the oper- 
ator may in thought, apply them to the person he 
would affect, and where and in what way the diseased 
condition would require. This mental act affects the 
spiritual organism of the invalid, and through this 
the physical body. It acts from within outward. It 
is the transmission of a mental force which produces 
physiological changes. Its results are sometimes 
marvelous to those who do not comprehend the spir- 
itual laws that govern us. The patient will be influ- 
enced in a degree proportioned to his susceptibility, 
and the mental force of the operator. If the latter 
have great strength of will, manifested in calmness, 
self-reliance, undoubting faith, a peaceful desire to 
impart good, and confidence in the help of higher 
powers, the effect produced on the mind of the inva- 
lid, and the change wrought in the functional action 
of the bodily organs, will be decided and permanent. 
Thus the mysterious forces of life can be transmitted 
as far as those of light, heat, or electricity can be 
conveyed through space, and in an analogous way. 
"We feel confident that to every ardent lover of truth 
the above hints and suggestions will be found to 
enclose a germ capable of almost unlimited unfold- 
ment. We humbly submit them to the consideration 
of all such minds. 



276 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

It is well known that, by the law of sympathy, cer- 
tain diseased states both of mind and body become 
contagious. The convulsions of hysteria are often 
propagated among young women in this way. The 
same is true of chorea, and of stammering. We 
insensibly imbibe the tastes, manners, habits, and even 
the bodily condition of others. Boerhaave relates 
that the pupils of a squint-eyed schoolmaster near 
Leyden, after a while, exhibited the same obliquity 
of vision. Those who have the care of the insane 
and the sick, are more or less affected by them. All 
abnormal states of mind or body are, in some degree, 
contagious. But healthy states both of the inner 
and outer man are equally communicable. The law 
of sympathy, according to which disease is transmit- 
ted from one person to another, is available for the 
propagation of sound states of the spiritual and phys- 
ical nature of man. The law operates with equal 
force both ways. A genuine sympathy, arising from 
a benevolent disposition, for a person in suffering, 
actually relieves him of his pain. There is by means 
of it an interchange of states. We enter, as it were, 
into his body, and become in some measure the same 
person with him, and take upon us his feelings and 
impart ours to him. We bear a part of his burden, 
and in proportion as we take upon ourselves his 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 277 

painful sensations and unhappy mental states, is he 
relieved of them. Patients feel better the moment a 
physician who is in sympathy with them, comes into 
the room. His words bring sunshine into their dark- 
ness, his presence supplies the magnetic life they 
need, his touch sends a thrill of pleasure through 
their whole frame, and his very look dispels their 
mental and bodily pains. Thus the doctrine of sym- 
pathy is of practical value in the treatment of the 
sick, and can be turned to a useful account. 



278 THE MENTAL-CURE. 



CHAPTEK XXII. 

APPETITES, INTUITIONS AND IMPRESSIONS, 
AND THEIR USE. 

Essential Spirituality of Man. — The Vis Medicatrix naturce 
is a Mental Force. — The Fetal Growth. — Incubation. — 
The Nature and Office of the Appetites. — Their Prescrip- 
tions. — Illustrations. — Nutriment for the Mind. — Spirit- 
ual Starvation. — Gibeonitish Crusts. — Voices without a 
sound. — Spiritual Impressions. — A deep and calm Re- 
vealing. — A Law of the Spiritual Life. — The Communion 
of Saints. — Education of our Intuitions. — The Inner Lan- 
guage. — The Cogitatio Loquens. — Intuitional Prescrip- 
tions. — Mental Telegraphing. — Madam Guy on and her 
Confessor. — Development of our hidden Powers. 

WE HAVE demonstrated the truth, that the 
only real thing in the life of the body is the 
mind, and that the organizing force is the spiritual 
principle. When the body receives an injury, the 
inner man goes to work to repair the damage. This 
was attributed by the earlier physiologists to what 
they called the vis medicatrix naturce, the healing power 
of nature. But this healing force is evidently spiritual, 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 279 

as all negative, depressing mental states greatly en- 
feeble its action, while the positive states of the mind 
increase its vigor. When the system is invaded by 
disease, the chances of a speedy recovery depend upon 
the condition of the patient's mind. If he be free 
from anxiety, is cheerful, full of hope, and has a stub- 
born faith, his restoration will be far more speedy 
under any system of medical treatment. The mind 
is the hidden force that reacts against disease, and 
repairs the damage sustained by any of the tissues by 
accident. To assist the vis medicatrix naturce, is the 
only office of the physician. 

In the vital germ in the womb, the soul-principle, 
imparted to it, sets itself to work to complete the 
bodily structure. The germ in the female ovaries, is 
a primary form receptive of the influx of spiritual 
life. It attracts to itself the most vital elements of 
the blood, which being robbed of its spiritual essence, 
is cast out of the system. It is vitalized still more, 
or receives an additional spiritual principle from the 
male semen, and thus endowed with a living force, 
attracts to itself and around itself from the circu- 
lation of the mother the elements necessary to the 
growth and completeness of the fetal organism. 
The same process is seen in the egg of the fowl. 
The germ of the future chick is the yolk. When 



280 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

this receives the vivifying principle from the male, 
it goes to work to build up the bodily structure. 
The albumen, or white of the egg^ contains in a sol- 
uble form all the elements needful for the purpose. 
The building materials that enter into the composi- 
tion of the body, are all found in this nutritious sub- 
stance, and ready to be appropriated. It diminishes 
in quantity, as the germ enlarges, until it is finally 
all absorbed. 

There is something similar to this in the action of 
a spiritual organizing force in adult life. Action 
always implies waste both in mind and body. From 
the body the devitalized particles are eliminated by 
the excreting organs, and a new supply is demanded 
to maintain the integrity of the organization. And 
we firmly believe that the mind, left to itself, and 
unbiased by education and the influence of others, 
will attract to itself what is needful to repair the 
waste resulting from the wear of its outward ma- 
chinery. It goes forth in special longings, unerring 
appetites, and instinctive cravings, for what the body 
needs. The word appetite ( from ad and peto ) means 
a seeking after something. The mind left to its nat- 
ural instincts will search, through the whole range 
of nutritive substances, after that which will supply 
the needed elements. If our appetites were unvitiat- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 281 

ed, they would give us with undeviating certainty a 
safe guide to what the body needs. If our mental 
instincts and intuitions were properly educated and 
trusted, they would prove our best physician, whose 
prescriptions we might rely upon with unhesitating 
confidence. In most, if not all, diseased conditions, 
there is a lack of some particular element, the loss of 
which impairs the healthy functional action of the 
weakened organ or organs. To supply this primi- 
tive element, whether.it be phosphorus, iodine, chlo- 
rine, the alkaline or acid principle, is the aim of any 
judicious medication, or dietetic regulations. Any 
prescription that fails to do this, is useless, if not 
positively injurious. In nine cases out of ten, the 
mind of the patient, in its instinctive cravings, will 
be the safest guide, and will give a prescription in 
plain English, without any unintelligible Latin or 
Cabalistic signs. Where there is a deficient quanti- 
ty of any element entering into the composition of 
the human frame, the mind will be moved by a spe- 
cial desire and longing for that very thing, or for 
some article of diet containing a large percentage of 
it. Or if there be an excess of some organic element, 
the soul will put forth its feelers after something to 
neutralize it. In a torpidity of the liver, the alka- 
line bile accumulates, and the patient feels a desire 



282 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

for acids to neutralize the excess of alkali. For the 
mind, as an organizing force exhibits a perpetual 
conatus to keep the body in such a state as to ren- 
der it a suitable instrument for the performance of 
the uses of the soul in this lower range of existence. 
We have known children to eat salt with greater ap- 
parent relish than others would sugar. This indi- 
cates a want of chloric acid, which that article sup- 
plies. In certain cold and negative states, we have 
known others to exhibit a special appetite for starch, 
which they would devour with avidity. In a large 
proportion of diseases there is a superabundance of 
the alkaline principle. In such cases the citric acid 
of lemons and of most sour fruits, or the lactic acid of 
sour milk cheese and buttermilk, become grateful to 
the taste. Lehmann, in his Chemical Physiology, has 
shown that the essential elements of the gastric juice 
are the lactic and chloric acids, in a free state. They 
also assist in the absorption of the chyle from the ali- 
mentary canal. In some diseases, as dropsy, there is a 
lack of the alkaline or an excess of the negative or 
acid element. The mind, through the sympathetic 
nerves, would then prescribe, as a diet, something 
abounding in alkali to neutralize the accumulating 
acid, and restore the balance between the positive 
and negative forces of the system. If we would 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 283 

learn the language of our inward oracle, and heed 
reverently its voice, we should discover within our- 
selves a temple of Esculapius, whose responses to our 
questionings would be a safe guide to health and 
longevity. But we stop our ears to its divine rev- 
elations, heed not its suggestions, and listen to the 
blind and senseless formulas of the drug practitioner, 
but too often repent our folly when it is too late. 

The mind also needs nutriment to furnish the spir- 
itual pabulum necessary to its endless growth, and 
to supply the means of recuperation from the fatigue 
resulting from long continued action in a given direc- 
tion. It needs recreation, or re-creation, which is 
only a change in the mode of its activity. We are 
so constituted that whatever will heighten our spir- 
itual activities, add to the growth and vigor of our 
powers, and increase our happiness, we instinctively 
long for, and seize upon with avidity. Many morbid 
mental states are only a starved condition of the 
intellect or the affections. There is an indefinable 
longing, an unsatisfied craving for something it has 
not. The pathological state resulting, is that of 
mental weakness and bodily decrepitude. If the hu- 
man mind was left more to itself, and to a freer devel- 
opment of its individuality, the world would be bet- 
ter and happier. Every healthy soul is the supreme 



284 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

judge of its own needs. There are many in the pres- 
ent advanced age of society, who have outgrown the 
infantile state that can draw nutriment from hooks, 
sermons, essays, and the mouldy Gibeonitish crusts 
of cant phrases used in the current religious instruc- 
tion, so called. The mental stomach loathes the 
innutritious and unsavory cookery of the church, 
which has only the power to sharpen men's appetites 
for something better. We rise from its table with 
our inward hunger unsatiated, our thirst un quenched. 
We crave the vital essence of truth itself, and not 
the external husk. Such minds turn with instinctive 
longing to the opening heavens, and seek, in commu- 
nion with the angel-world, the living bread. This 
they do as intuitively as the new-born infant seeks 
the maternal breast. We ask our appointed teachers 
for bread, and get a stone ; for fish, and a serpent is 
served up for us; for an egg — for a living germ of 
truth, — and are turned off with a scorpion. We run 
over their ancient bill of fare, worn and defaced, and 
find nothing which our mental instincts crave. We 
go through their round of outward ceremonies, their 
genuflections, washings, prayers, and psalm-singing, 
rehearse an unintelligible creed, and like a hungry 
man, dream we are filled, but awake, and behold, we 
are empty. ^ 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 285 

In such a state, it is practicable for us to listen to 
the voiceless instruction of the angel-world. No 
miracle, no departure from the ordinary laws of the 
spirit is required to open a living intercourse with 
the heavens. It is a fact, as well established as any 
principle of chemistry, that one mind can impress its 
thoughts and feelings upon another, without the inter- 
vention of spoken words. Thousands of successful 
experiments have confirmed its truth and reality. We 
accept it as a settled principle. Angelic spirits may 
impress our delicately sensitive inner organism, as 
easily as they are supposed to play upon a golden 
harp, and thus give us an intuitive knowledge of the 
truths we need. A larger proportion of our highest 
and best thoughts owe their origin to this source, and 
come to us from the upper realms, than we are aware 
of. We should receive vastly more from those in the 
inner world who love us, and long to share their ce- 
lestial treasure with us, if we had not been educated 
to fear them, and even to believe that intercourse 
with them is wicked, notwithstanding Jesus set us the 
example of communion with the ever-present heavens. 
Such teachers take away the key of knowledge. 
They will neither enter the temple of wisdom them- 
selves, nor suffer others, whom they can prevent, to 
do so. In consequence of this unnatural education, 



'286 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

there is many a one who would be as much afraid of 
the spirit of his mother, as he ought to be of the me- 
diaeval devil. But the desire to communicate good 
and truth to man on earth is as natural for good 
spirits, as it is for water to descend from a higher to a 
lower level. It is the delight of their life. It is 
something like what we observe in ourselves here. 
If your loved and loving friend is removed from you, 
how he longs to see you and speak to you. If there 
was anything you needed to make you well and hap- 
py, if it were possible for him to speak to your inner 
ear, how gladly would he inform you where to find it. 
This longing, this pang and chasm of separation, 
which we feel when we are absent from loved ones, 
is but an expression of the same feeling that leads 
those above to desire to communicate their better 
thoughts and feelings to those below. It would be pain- 
ful for us to visit one we loved, and fail in our attempts 
to cause him to recollect us, and to have him fly from 
us as from one who would do him injury. These 
are natural feelings, belonging to the very essence of 
the soul, and are carried over with us to the other 
life. When we outgrow our unnatural fear of our 
best friends, and do not fly from their love as if it 
were infernal hate, and welcome their return to us, 
and recognize them in their true character, converse 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 287 

with the upper sphere of being will be more frequent 
and elevating. We have reason to believe, that in 
consequence of this unnatural feeling which we owe 
to our want of proper education, and our dismal 
doubts of their real existence, our friends who have 
migrated to the celestial plains, feel our loss as much 
as we do theirs. It must be unpleasant for a child 
who returns home from a journey to a foreign clime, 
to the parents he loves, and to whom he longs to im- 
part the rich stores of information he has gained, to 
have them be frightened at his approach, refuse his 
offered treasures, and close the door in his face. 

It is remarked by one who had a larger experience 
of an open intercourse with the angel-world, than any 
man in modern history, that in the other world there 
is a universal communication of thoughts and affec- 
tions, owing to the very nature and laws of spirit. 
The knowledge of an individual or association is as 
naturally imparted to all who desire it, as for a heat- 
ed body, for instance a gold coin, to transfuse its heat 
into another in contact with it. Only in the spiritual 
world this is done more perfectly and without any 
diminution of light in the communicating mind. 
In the Arcana Celestia we are truly told, " That 
there is not only a communication of another's affec- 
tions and thoughts, but also of his knowledge, and 



288 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

that so completely, as for one to think that he knows 
whatever another does, although before he had no 
aquaintance with such subjects. Thus all the attain- 
ments of one are communicated to others. Some 
spirits retain what they are thus made acquainted 
with, but others do not." 

The same illumined author further observes, " Souls 
are surprised on their entrance into another life, to 
find that there is such a communication of the 
thoughts of others, and that they instantly become 
acquainted, not only with the character of another's 
mind, but also with that of his knowledge." 

This is only a universal law and property of mind, 
and we may avail ourselves of it here and now, for we 
are only spirits clothed with a material body. It is 
as natural for one mind to communicate its thoughts 
and feelings to another, as for a flower to emit fra- 
grance. The inner world spontaneously flows into 
the outer. No effort is necessary to this influx of 
celestial light, any more than is needful to cause 
the stars in a clear firmament to shine into the dark- 
ness, bat only a receptive mind. We may come into 
a conscious communication with the light of the 
spiritual world, which, in its essence, is pure truth, 
and we may do this without intercourse with any in- 
dividual spirit. We may imbibe the living light of 



TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 289 

a higher sun. The higher always gravitates to a 
lower level, the interior to the external. This is the 
established order of influx. And we have it in our 
power to commence a course of education, or develop- 
ment from within, in place of the buugling instruction 
we receive from without — from books and tutors. To 
put our spirits into harmonious conjunction with 
the angelic realms and the living light of a higher 
sky and diviner sun, is to come into a position where 
we may learn, in the brief space of an hour, more 
than by months of patient study in the schools. Bless- 
ed is the man who has been inserted into an angelic 
consociation, who has an all-satisfying fellowship 
with those who have graduated to a nearer approach 
to the Infinite Mind, and who finds a conscious celes- 
tial companionship in the most lonely solitude. 

If we would educate our intuitions and impress- 
ions, they would become an almost unerring light. 
Men are influenced by them now far more than in the 
pride of their boasted reason, they are ready to ac- 
knowledge. What we need is the restoration of our 
inner life to freedom. It was made to rule the out- 
ward senses, not to be in bondage to them. Most 
men are in an abnormal state, an inverted position. 
Our inner self, by which we are placed in contact 
with the spiritual world, is overlaid and suppressed 



290 THE MENTAL-CUKE. 

by our sensuous nature. To our inner man, the 
heavens may speak in a still small voice, — in a calm 
and deep revealing. Internally we are always in 
speaking distance with the angels. They are our 
nearest neighbors. Ideas, which are only the living 
images of things, have their home in the spiritual 
realm. They are an objective creation there. They 
are the primitives of all our mental conceptions, 
the soul of. our thoughts, and inmost essence of vo- 
cal language. Angelic and celestial ideas flow into 
our thoughts so far as they are able to contain them, 
and spoken words are the outward expression of 
thoughts. Thought in the spiritual world is as dis- 
tinctly heard as words are in our social intercourse 
here. For thought occasions a vibration in the 
spiritual atmosphere, which is conveyed to the inner 
ear, just as our vocal utterances cause an undulatory 
movement of the air, which affects the external organ 
of hearing. But the one is as audible as the other. 
Converse with those in the interior or spiritual realm 
is as easy to those who understand the principles 
and laws by which it is effected and governed, and 
who have passed through the necessary development, 
as it is for us to speak to one another in this exter- 
nal plane of life. There is a far more satisfying and 
reliable medium of communication than written or 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 291 

oral language. We do not attach the same mean- 
ing to outward words, hence do not understand each 
other fully. But our thoughts, if they were commu- 
nicated to each other, would be clear and intelligible. 
In Dr. Brittan's recent excellent work, " Man and 
his Belations," he says : " The human mind in its 
progress employs media and methods of communi- 
cation, suited to the several stages of its devel- 
opment. However serviceable these instrumental- 
ities may be — each in its appropriate time and 
place — they may be inadequate to meet the demands 
of more enlightened periods. We realize the insuf- 
ficiency of written and oral language to express the 
highest thoughts and deepest feelings. There is 
another — it may possibly become — a more perfect 
medium of communication. This language, though 
unwritten and unspoken, may be adequate to a full- 
er expression of all we feel and know. It is not 
unfrequently the means, — little as it is practiced and 
understood — of revealing thoughts and impulses to 
which a vocal utterance has been denied." 

In the other world language is a cogitatio loquens, a 
cogitative utterance. It is the communication of 
thought from one mind to another. This is as per- 
ceptible to the inner auditory sensory as words are 
to us. When. an angelic idea is received by us, the 



292 TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 

degrees of descent are these. Spiritual ideas flow 
into our thoughts, and these find utterance, or an 
emhodiraent, in the words that are in our memory. 
But our thoughts may not be capacious enough to 
hold an angelic idea, and our words but poorly ex- 
press our thoughts. He whose mind is exalted to a 
spiritual plane of activity, may perceive, as Paul did, 
unutterable things. The soul, in the calm, loving, and 
living light of a supersensuous realm, may enjoy an 
ineffable intellectual and affectional experience. 

In what we have said, there may be seen the oper- 
ation of an arcane principle, a hidden and undeveloped 
law of our minds, of which we may avail ourselves in 
holding an all-satisfying communion with the angel- 
world, and become receptive of its light. If we 
are diseased and unhappy, and know not where to 
turn for relief, we may be assured that the light we 
need is shining on the other shore. Our angel guar- 
dians know, or may learn, what we need and will 
communicate it to us, if we will open the inner ear 
to receive it, as gladly as a mother would tell her 
child what will relieve its pains, and we may receive 
the needed truth as naturally as the opening flower 
drinks in the rays of the sun. We may rely on such 
impressional intelligence, and intuitive flashes of a 
higher light, far more than upon the prescriptions 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 293 

of a well-meaning, but imperfectly enlightened phy- 
sician. In a calm, passive, and receptive mental 
state, our first impressions, before we have had time 
to reason, are always the safest and surest guide. 
What we call reason, is often only a struggle of 
doubt with truth, and not unfrequently throws us 
from the pathway of light into the dismal darkness 
on each side of it. 

Sometimes a person attains to a state, where the 
thoughts of men, which are the vernacular language 
of the spirit, become distinctly cognizable. Jesus 
perfectly understood this inner language. There are 
those now who will answer a question put to them in 
thought, as readily as if it were addressed to them 
by the external organs of speech. We have often 
told what a person's thoughts and feelings were, many 
miles away. Madam Guy on relates, in her Auto- 
biography, that she was accustomed to enter into pro- 
tracted conversations with her Confessor, without the 
use of spoken words, employing only the cogitatio 
loquens, the inner language. At length they could 
thus converse when they were at a distance of miles 
from each other. This was no miracle. It was only 
the unfoldment of an unused power of our nature. 
There is in every man the innate faculty of convers- 
ing with spirits in the flesh or those who have put off 



294 THE MENTAL-CORE. 

their outward envelope. Speech similar to that of 
the spiritual world is implanted in every man, but our 
sensual educational systems, do not unfold the hidden 
germ, but oftener suppress it. As soon as any one 
comes into the other life, he finds himself in the same 
speech with the inhabitants of that hitherto mys- 
terious realm, and is able to converse with them 
without instruction. We could do it here and now, 
if we would possess ourselves of a knowledge of the 
laws of the human spirit, and take advantage of them. 
In ancient times, and all along the stream of human 
history, there have been those who made use of this 
inner language, and had communication by means of 
it with the spiritual world. What human nature has 
ever done, is practicable to-day. For in no epoch of 
the world have all the hidden powers and capabilities 
of our being been unfolded. But we are not to sup- 
pose that this privilege would be accorded to us for 
our amusement or that of others, but only for the 
accomplishment of some important use. For God 
always gives to every man the light he needs for the 
performance of the work assigned him in the plan of 
Providence. Guided by these hints and suggestions, 
we may educate ourselves to this high and holy con- 
verse, and in advanced years as well or easier than in 
youth. There arc many persons who are dissatisfied 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 295 

with the mere shell of knowledge, the rind of the 
fruit, the cortex of the tree of life, and long for some- 
thing to nourish and allay the cravings of their spirit. 
In harmony with the laws of their being, they may 
find what they need. The tree of knowledge is 
beginning to be looked upon as no forbidden fruit, 
but an enlightened science is giving us access to it, 
and we may eat and live. Our highest conceptions 
we do not get from books, but they are flashes of a 
purer light, undulations of the abyss of light that 
communicate a concordant vibratory movement to 
our minds, and come to us as the whisperings 
of a still, small -voice within. Such communicated 
thoughts have been appropriately called impressions. 
If men were less sensuous, and their inner life was 
adjusted in harmony with the celestial realms, they 
would not be an unreliable source of knowledge. 
They are an effort of the heavens to impart to us 
their living ideas and share with us their intellectual 
and affectional treasures. For such is the nature of 
the divine and angelic love, that there is in it a per- 
petual conatus to impart its own life to all the lower 
degrees of existence. All that we need is a spirit 
admissive of it, and the light of the higher realms 
will spontaneously flow in. The needed receptivity 
consists in the love of truth for its own sake, and a 
desire and purpose to apply it to a benevolent use. 



296 THE MENTAL-CURE. 



CHAPTEK XXIII. 

THE SANATIVE POWER OF WORDS. 

The Words we utter embody our Mental Force. — They are 
the Index of Character. — How our Mental States affect our 
Words. — Their Permanence in the Memory. — Their last- 
ing Influence. — Fact given by Coleridge. — Dr. Rush. — 
The Power of Written Words. — Books have Life. — Effect 
of it upon the Psychometer. — Prescriptions of Frederica 
Hauffe. — Psychical Remedies. — The Creative Utterances 
of Jesus. — Frederic Von SchlcgeVs Philosophy of the Com- 
municated Word. — Therapeutic Force of kind Words. — 
Testimony of Baglivi. 

ONE OF the principal mediums through which 
mind acts upon mind, is that of words, spoken or 
written. Words are the representatives of ideas, the 
outward manifestation of thought, and the ultima- 
tion of a hidden spiritual power. They are things 
that have life in them, which is communicable by 
them. They are not mere empty sounds, like the 
sighing of the wind or the noise of a waterfall. If 
this were the case, they would be of no more conse- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 297 

quence than the breath expended in producing them. 
The whole soul is sometimes in the words we utter, 
especially when, to use a common expression, they 
come from the heart, that is, from the love or life. 
The outward material organism is not the man, and 
is no necessary part of humanity. It is the mind 
that makes the man. This is composed of the two 
departments of the love and the intellect, and a 
more outward manifestation of these is affection and 
thought. These are ultimated or expressed in the 
words we utter. Thus they are charged with the very 
life of man — the vital force of the soul. They affect 
not only the tympanum, but they sink into the interior 
depths of our being. They are not like the leaves 
loosened from the trees by an autumn wind, and 
strewed upon the bosom of a quiet lake to float upon 
its surface ; but there is in them a spiritual gravity, 
which causes them to sink into the hidden depths of 
the spirit. 

Words are the index of character. They enclose 
within them our thoughts, and the tone with which 
they are uttered indicates the state of the affections. 
In another world, the utterance of a single word 
reveals to the intuitions of angelic spirits the ruling 
love that lurks within it, and with the knowledge of 
this is laid open the life and character. In the effect, 



298 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

they perceive the cause. The heart, that is the love, 
is the fountain; words are the stream. If the foun- 
tain is clear as crystal, the issuing rill will be the 
water of life. If the heart be like the bitter well of 
Mara, there will not be sweetness in the words. 
Even idle or aimless words, and mere fashionable 
talk, which are like the bubbles or foam floating on 
the current of the stream of life, though they may 
assume the most beautiful forms, and steal the tints 
of the rainbow, will be internally like the heart 
whence they proceed. For bubbles are formed from 
the stream, and partake of its general qualities. 
Jesus declared a great truth when he affirmed, that 
" Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speak- 
eth." The Greek word here rendered abundance, 
signifies a redundant fullness that overflows. When 
the heart is full of love, it overflows in kind and gen- 
tle words. When a man is full of anger, he is like 
the volcanic wells of Iceland, and boils over in scald- 
ing words. If there is melancholy in the heart, and 
the soul is full of it, there is a dirge-like strain in 
the tone of the voice, like the sighing of the mid- 
night winds in the leafless trees of a cemetery in 
winter. If joy and heavenly peace pervade a man's 
inner being, the cheerful music of his voice will mix 
and mingle with the grand chorus of bliss in the 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 299 

angelic realms. We do not mean, that to the blunt- 
ed perceptions of most men, a person's words will 
always reveal his ruling love and inward character. 
They may fall from the lips like spurious coin from 
the mint of the counterfeiter, and the gilded brass 
may have the ring of the genuine metal, but our 
angelic intuitions will penetrate the thin covering. 
As men become more intuitional, the personation of 
the good by the evil, in the drama of life, will termi- 
nate. Evil will be detected, even though it may 
throw around it the costume of fair words. 

Words are wonderfully mysterious things. When 
uttered in the. presence of mind, they do not waste 
themselves upon the illimitable and desert air, but 
cleave to the soul of him who hears them like "nails 
driven into the walls of the house. Who has not 
been troubled by the involuntary recurrence to his 
memory of the vile utterances of evil doers which he 
heard long years ago in his youth. They light down 
like a flock of harpies, to pollute, it may be, a heav- 
enly feast. They come unbidden to mingle with our 
holiest meditations, and perhaps even with our 
prayers. 

" Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, 
Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain ; 
Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise ! — 
Each stamps its image as the other flies." 



300 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

Thus it is with the words we heard in our child- 
hood, either good or bad. In after-life, touch but 
one and a whole cloud of them will arise, like 
aquatic birds from a lake in the mountains. 

There is a lasting sanative spiritual influence in 
words of love and sympathy. There are coloring 
substances so diffusive that a minute and almost in- 
estimable quantity will tinge a large body of water. 
So a few kind words will sometimes give coloring to 
a person's whole life. I am not speaking of that 
heartless sentimentality which dismisses the poor 
soul from its door with the hollow wish, "Be ye 
warmed and be ye filled," and that offers to its 
neighbor, who sits dumb with his overwhelming 
grief, its empty cant phrases committed to memory. 
Love is the animating soul of kind words, and 
through their medium we may communicate our own 
mental states, our inmost life, to strengthen and 
invigorate those that need our help. But to him 
whose affections are blasted and cold from some 
great calamity that has crushed through his heart- 
strings, we may say never so many times, "Be ye 
warmed, " but if our words do not spring from a 
heart glowing with genuine love, there is no heat in 
them. They impinge against the afflicted spirit 
like the frost crystals of a winter's day. They may 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 301 

shine and glitter, but they chill the life's blood of him 
who speaks or hears them. In all loving words 
there is a therapeutic force, and a divine life. Truth, 
when it is the outward envelope of a living love in- 
closed as a vitalizing spark within it, when ultimated 
in words and deposited in the mind of another, never 
fades from his memory so that it cannot be recalled. 
It may for a season be forgotten, or pass from our 
present recollection. It may to appearance be deep 
beneath the accumulated rubbish of after-years. 
But at the quickening voice of God or of his angels, 
it shall start to life again, come forth from its sepul- 
cher to consciousness, and assert its divine right to 
reign. It will be like characters written with invis- 
ible ink. The paper thus inscribed appears a blank, 
yet when held before the fire, line after line, sentence 
after sentence comes to view, as if penned by 
an invisible hand. Truth from love is divine. 
It is the light of a quenchless flame. Like Milton's 
angels, it is immortal in every part, and cannot die. 
It is one of those divine and positive realities that 
cannot be annihilated. The words that inclose it 
and through which it enters the memory, can never 
be erased from that imperishable tablet. Though 
sunk deep beneath the oblivious waves of after-years, 
they will sometime rise and float upon the surface. 



302 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

Many facts are given to show the tenacity with 
which the mind holds the memory of words even 
oasualhj spoken. Among them we may cite the case 
mentioned by Coleridge, of a servant girl, who, in 
the delirium of a fever, was heard to repeat long 
sentences in Greek and Rabbinic Hebrew, languages 
she had never learned, and which she had only heard 
without attention by the minister in whose family, 
many years before, she had lived as a domestic. Yet 
those words of a strange language were stereotyped 
upon the mental plate. Dr. Rush also relates that 
the Germans of his day in Philadelphia, when dying, 
usually prayed in their native tongue, though they 
had not spoken it for fifty years, and had apparently 
forgotten it. Thus our words of love and kindness 
will have a lasting influence. They will live in the 
minds of son\e long after the monument, that marks 
the resting place of our ashes, shall have crumbled 
back to dust. 

There is a lasting power also in written words. A 
letter or a book may be charged with the divine 
magnetism of a spiritual life. There is an underly- 
ing truth in the apparently extravagant assertion of 
William Hazlitt, that "words are the only things that 
last forever." And some one has eloquently said, 
"Words convey the mental treasures of one period to 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 303 

the generations that follow; and, laden with this their 
precious freight, they sail safely across gulfs of time 
in which empires have suffered shipwreck." The 
wise and good of past ages, the noblest and holiest 
spirits that ever lived and moved among men, the 
world's real heroes and benefactors, have sometimes 
gathered up into a few words the rich harvest of their 
knowledge and experience, and launched them upon 
the ocean of human life to carry their celestial treas- 
ures to all coming ages. A book written by a good 
and wise man is not to be classed among things that 
are dead. A living soul seems to breathe and speak 
from its pages. The affection and thought of the 
author, that never can be separated from his living 
mind, still animate the speaking sentences. There 
is an intuitive perception of this in the veneration 
with which the sacred books of the nations are held. 
Mohammed is still in the Koran, and Jesus in the 
Gospels. The letter fixes in an outward form the 
still living thought of an author. In the cloistered 
stillness of the library that has gathered up these 
spiritual treasures, we seem to move along its silent 
halls among the spirits of the mighty dead. We 
fain would believe that this is not destitute of all real- 
ity. Place a book in the hand, or on the forehead, 
of a person gifted with the psychometric sense, and 



304 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

enough of the spiritual life of the author will be still 
in it, to reveal his character. This hidden influence 
affects the delicate sensibility of the psychometer. 
A letter from a person written even on another conti- 
nent, will be so charged with the living magnetism 
and spiritual force of the writer of it, as to cause the 
mind of the psychometer to vibrate in harmony with 
it, and the authors feelings of mind and body will be 
reproduced, and can be accurately described. Here 
is a subtle force which has been turned to a practical 
use in the cure of disease. The psychometer is only 
more conscious than others of this influence, in conse- 
quence of the peculiar sensitiveness of his organism. 
For psychometry may be defined to be the sympathetic 
state, and the interior sensations, as clairvoyance and 
clairaudience, belonging to it. All may be affected 
in as great a degree. The Seeress of Prevorst used 
this power in delivering persons from the psycholog- 
ical influence of disorderly or undeveloped spirits, 
which is a concomitant of many diseasd conditions. 
She employed sentences written upon paper, which 
were to be carried about the person. She perhaps 
had little knowledge of the laws governing their 
action, but they were successful in relieving the 
patient from his disordered mental states, and thus 
sundered the sympathetic connection between him 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 305 

and similarly diseased mind in the inner sphere of 
being. There is a law here but imperfectly under- 
stood, and not generally recognized, but which can 
be turned to a good account. 

There is a greater power in words than men are 
aware of. The creative power of God is expressed 
by the Platonists, and by John in his Gospel, by the 
term Logos or Word. But this power is given to 
every soul made in the image of God. Frederic 
Von Schlegel makes the distinguishing characteristic 
of man, and the peculiar eminence of human nature, 
to consist in this — that to him alone among all other 
of earth's creatures the word has been imparted and 
communicated. "In the idea of the word," he ob- 
serves, "considered as the basis of man's dignity and 
peculiar destination, the internal light of conscious- 
ness and of our own understanding is undoubtedly 
to be included, — this word is not a mere faculty of 
speech, but the fertile root whence the stately trunk 
of all languages has sprung. But the word is not 
confined to this only — it next includes a living, work- 
ing power — it is not merely an object and organ of 
knowledge — an instrument of teaching and learn- 
ing, but the means of affectionate union, conciliatory 
accommodation, efficacious command, and even crea- 
tive productiveness, as our own experience and life 



306 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

itself manifest each of those significations of the 
word; and thus it embraces the whole plenitude of 
the excellencies and qualities which characterize 
man." In proportion as man possesses this divine prin- 
ciple implanted in him, he approaches the divine and 
angelic nature. But so far as he loses that word of 
life, which has been communicated and confided to 
him, he sinks down to a level with nature, and instead 
of dominions over nature, becomes her vassal. ( Phi- 
losophy of History, p. 87.) 

Jesus of Nazareth possessed this divine power in 
an eminent degree, and nature seemed passive under 
his hands. He comprehended the potential spiritual 
force of words, as a medium of communicating life 
and sanative psychological influence. He employed 
certain formulas or expressive sentences into which he 
concentrated and converged his whole mental force, 
and made them the means of transmitting spiritual 
life to the disordered mind. Some of these pregnant 
utterances, always used according to the nature of 
the case, were these: "Go in peace; Be of good 
cheer, thy sins are all forgiven thee; Be it unto thee 
according to thy faith; I will, be thou cleansed; 
Peace be unto thee ; Arise and walk." Into these few 
words were condensed his whole mental force, and 
they were made to communicate his better state of 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 307 

feeling and thought to the sufferer. Spiritual diseases 

demand psychical remedies. Thousands there are 

who would be better both in mind and body, if they 

only knew there was some one in the universe who 

loved them. We should demonstrate to them that 

God loves them, angels love them, and we love them. 

"Go to the poor sufferer, deserted and destitute, dying 

of despair; carry him stores of relief in your hand, 

love and pity in your eye and voice; and see how the 

sun-burst of joyful surprise breaks on his brow only 

just tinged with the vanishing skirts of dread. In 

millions of cases, no recipes of vegetable or mineral 

drugs can compare in value and power with such 

pharmaceutics as a grain of patience, a pennyweight 

of magnanimity, a drop of forgiveness, a draught of 

pure resolve, a hearty inhalation of friendship and 

faith. These and such as these, are — 

11 Antidotes 
Of medicated music, answering for 
Mankind's foiiornest uses." 

Oftentimes, a physician accomplishes more toward 
the raising up of a patient, by his words of sympathy 
and encouragement, than by his medical prescrip- 
tions, for the reason that there is more sanative vir- 
tue in them, and they are better adapted to the re- 
moval of the spiritual disturbances that aggravate, if 



308 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

they do not originate, the disease. Baglivi was 
deeply impressed with the truth of this and frankly 
acknowledges it. He says : "I can scarcely express 
how much the conversation of the physician influ- 
ences even the life of the patient, and modifies his 
complaints. For a physician powerful in speech, and 
skilled in addressing the feelings of a patient, adds so 
much to the power of his remedies, and excites so 
much confidence in his treatment, as frequently to 
overcome dangerous diseases with very feeble reme- 
dies, which more learned doctors, languid and indif- 
ferent in speech, could not have cured with the best 
remedies that man could produce." 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 309 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

THE RELATION OF MENTAL FORGE TO PHYSI- 
CAL STRENGTH, AND HOW TO CURE GENERAL 
DEBILITY. 

The Amount of Force! generated in the System. — Whence Pro- 
duced. — The Abnormal State Called General Debility. — 
Wliat is Strength f — Case cited to show its Mental Origin. 
— The Mental Faculties that influence the Will Force. — 
Their Importance. — The Cerebral Organ of Muscular Mo- 
tion — The Relation of Respiration to Muscular Force. — 
What is Swooning ? — 'The Force of the Bodily Movement 
proportioned tothe Mental Energy. — The Effect of Respi- 
ration 'upon the Vital Processes. — Nervousness a Mental 
State. — Its cure — Relaxation of the Abdominal Muscles. — 
Misplacement of the Internal Organs. ■ — Depressing Men- 
tal States the Cause — Sow to get rid of the Supporter and 
Body Brace — Relation of the Mind to Diseases of Dimin- 
ished Vitality. — Dr. Combe. 

THE AMOUNT of mechanical force generated 
and expended in the human system in the daily 
working of the animal machinery, is far beyond what 
would be conjectured by one who had not investiga- 
ted the subject. For the performance of the functions 



310 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

of respiration and circulation, the amount expended 
every day is not less than several thousands of pounds. 
To this we must add the amount necessary to the in- 
gestion and digestion of the food and the expulsion 
of the excretions. The aggregate amount of force 
expended in labor and locomotion, has been estimated 
to be not less than two millions of pounds a day, or 
one thousand tons. We have seen that heat and 
mechanical force are correlative. But the heat neces- 
sary to the generation of such an amount of force 
cannot be produced by the oxydation or slow com- 
bustion of the Carbon and hydrogen of the blood. 
This is wholly inadequate to meet so great a demand, 
and to replace the amount radiated from the body. 
We must look to some other source for the genera- 
tion of the muscular power of the system. 

Let us look at the phenomena exhibited by that 
pathological condition called general debility. These 
words are in common use to express a state of the 
system with which every medical practitioner fre- 
quently meets. A very large fraction of chronic 
diseases, at least three-fourths, come under this gen- 
eral designation. There seems to be but little, and 
sometimes no organic disease, but only a general 
weakness in the action of all the organs, a lack of 
vital force everywhere, a negative state of the body. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 311 

The favorite prescriptions for it include quinine 
protoxide of iron, and various tonics and stimulants. 
But drugs have no adaptation to the cure of such a 
state of things. A more subtle chemistry must he 
brought to the aid of the enfeebled and negative or- 
ganism. Strength is not in the body, the muscles are 
not a force. These are only the instruments of a 
spiritual force. We have seen a girl, weak, pale, 
and apparently possessing but little muscular power, 
who, when under the excitement of a certain form 
of Hysteria, would exhibit almost gigantic physical 
strength, requiring the force of two men to hold her. 
After coming out of these attacks, she did not seem 
greatly exhausted, not more than ordinarily followed 
a walk of half a mile. This almost superhuman 
power, this Titanic force, was not in her physical 
system. It was not a property of the bodily organ- 
ism, it was purely a mental state, and the augment- 
ed muscular strength was the resultant of increased 
mental force. What we improperly call physical 
strength is always in the mind. The body has no 
force but that of gravity and cohesion, which belong 
in common to all solids and fluids. 

But what is that mental condition which makes 
one strong ? A consciousness of strength, of what 
we call physical power, if not synonymous with health, 



312 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

is closely allied to it, and is correlative of it. 
Ling based his movement cure upon the truth, that 
perfect health and physical power were convertible 
terms. But what goes to make up the spiritual 
state that is the cause of muscular force ? The op- 
posite of that which underlies a state of general 
debility. In this there is a lack of mental force— 
of will energy. Neither the muscular nor the nerv- 
ous tissue is diseased. In paralysis there is a soft- 
ening of the nerves of motion, and they become imper- 
fect conductors of the will-force. Nothing of this 
kind is found in general debility. The lack of men- 
tal force may be, and often is, the result of discourage- 
ment — a state of mind made up of a want of faith, an 
inactive or inverted condition of the organ of hope, 
and a negative action of the sentiment of self-esteem. 
It is the office of this latter faculty to give us the 
sense of our personal identity, our peculiar individu- 
ality, and to cause us to feel a respect for it, and to 
place a proper value upon it. It inspires us with 
the feeling of self-reliance, and of freedom, which is 
favourable to the manifestations of muscular force 
and virtuous activity. It gives that confidence in 
the use of our powers which is necessary to success 
in every department of human labor, and to the 
efficient discharge of the functions of every office. Its 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 3i3 

office seems to be to add force to all our volitions. 
It imparts a positive influence to the mind, and gives 
the power of controlling both ourselves and others. 
The lack of this quality causes a negative condition 
of the mind, which by influx into the body, weakens 
the tone of all muscular action. What we call self- 
esteem, for the want of a better name, has much to 
do with physical strength. The persons most 
remarkable for muscular power, exhibit a large and 
active development of it. The part of the brain 
where all voluntary motions originate, is in close 
proximity to it, being situated at a middle point 
between flrmess and self-esteem. This part of the 
cerebrum supplies the necessary stimulus to the dia- 
phragm and all the voluntary muscles. It is the seat 
of the will, the self-determining power of the mind. 
Surrounding it are the organs whose office it is to 
give energy to our volitions, as faith, firmness, self- 
esteem, and continuity. When these organs are in 
a normal condition, there is seldom found a state of 
general debility. A judicious magnetic treatment 
of this part of the brain accomplishes wonders in 
restoring the strength of a patient. When a person 
has the feeling, "I am strong; I can do a great 
thing; I can do what man has ever done," it is an 
excitement of the sentiment of faith, firmness, and 



314 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 



self-esteem, and the increased vital action of their 
cerebral organs extends instantly to the organ of 
voluntary motion. Under the stimulus of these 
feelings, the body spontaneously assumes an erect 
attitude, and the person exhibits the conscious dig- 
nity of his manhood. The shoulders are drawn 
back, the chest enlarged, and the breathing is deep 
and full. Whatever mental state will increase 
the amount of respiratory action will increase the 
strength. And nature has provided that when we 
are about to exert great muscular force and feel ade- 
quate to it, whether it be lifting or striking, we shall 
precede the effort with a deep inspiration. Let any 
one try the experiment. The more one breathes, 
other things being equal, the stronger he is. The 
size of the lungs, indicated by breadth between the 
shoulders, and deepness and fullness of the chest, is 
the measure of a person's muscular force. The less 
one breathes, the weaker he is. In swooning, which 
is accompanied with a loss of all voluntary motion, 
there is only a suspended respiration. On recover- 
ing, or rather the cause of the restoration to con- 
sciousness and muscular power is, a deep breath is 
drawn, and with it comes back the lost physical force. 
The best restoratives are magnetism of the part of 
the brain that is the seat of the will, and alternate 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 315 

pressure of the abdominal muscles and the chest, to 
create an artificial breathing, as is done in cases of 
drowning and asphyxia. This is often successful in 
a few minutes. We have thus restored a patient in 
one minute. In cases of general debility, there is 
always a feeble respiration, in fact, it is physiolog- 
ically a partial and chronic swooning. The breath- 
ing is short and quick, and the pulse correspondingly 
feeble and rapid. For nature maintains a rythmic 
harmony between the movements of the heart and 
lungs. All depressing mental states, as we have 
before shown, are attended with an imperfect respira- 
tion, the lungs only being called into action, and 
no movement being communicated to the abdominal 
muscles. The muscular membrane, called the dia- 
phragm, separating between the thoracic and ab- 
dominal cavities, whose contraction supplies the res- 
piratory force, loses its nervous power, and its con- 
vexity. It must be restored to a healthy tone, and 
its contractility increased, for its action is prior to 
all muscular motions, and voluntary exhibitions of 
physical force. But there is no medicinal compound 
in the endless list of pharmaceutical preparations, 
that can effect this change. There must be a return 
to a natural respiration, a normal breathing, which 
must not be a momentary exercise, but become an 
habitual bodily state. 



•316 THE MENTAL-CCRE. 

We have shown, in a previous chapter, that the 
action of the heart and lungs are primary motions on 
which all the physiological movements and processes 
depend. The effect of respiration extends beyond the 
substance of the lungs and the thorax. Motion is 
communicated by it, not only to the abdominal cover- 
ings and to all the organs within the abdominal cav- 
ity, but to the smallest blood vessels, and promotes 
the circulation of their fluid contents. There is not 
only a rising and falling of the mass of the brain, syn- 
chronous with the contraction and relaxation of the 
diaphragm, and the expansion and shrinking of the 
pulmonary substance, but the same movement, though 
not so perceptible, is communicated to the cerebro- 
spinal axis and all the nerves, which are only the con- 
tinuation or ramification of the brain into the body. 
Its effects extend to every fiber and minute vessel of 
the organism, and are consequently promotive of all 
the vital processes and functions. Too much impor- 
tance cannot be attached to a proper respiration, as 
being intimately related to a normal manifestation 
of the mind, and a healthy functional action of the 
various organs. 

It is evident that the stimulus of any mental 
state, that causes a normal action of the diaphragm, 
the lungs, and the abdominal muscles, and thus in- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 317 

creases the breathing force, will alone permanently 
increase the strength, restore the lost tone of the 'vi- 
tal movements, and cure the prevalent state of the 
system called general debility. To breathe is to live 
and the more we breathe, the more we live. Strength 
is not a property of our material organization, but is 
more a mental state. The body moves with a power 
proportioned to the mental energy. Motion in the 
body is an effect, of which some spiritual force is the 
cause. It does not originate in the body. There is 
a force distinct from all material organization, which 
is the motive power of the machinery. The power of 
the motion is ever proportioned to the degree of the 
spiritual force. To strengthen the body, if such a 
contradiction were possible, does not demand the use 
of tonics and stimulants, but we must increase the 
mental force. If we can by any means arouse the 
mind to a vigorous tone, and become " strong, and of 
a good courage," our general debility will soon dis- 
appear. The patient is always under the influence ot 
certain depressing mental states, which sustain a 
causal relation to the trouble, and the so-called bodi- 
ly weakness. It is of no use to try to relieve symp- 
toms, and doctor effects. The remedial agency must 
be less superficial. We must attend to the fountain 
of bodily life, and minister to a mind diseased. We 



318 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

need not filter the stream. We must purify the 
spring. Remove the spiritual cause, and the bodily 
effect will cease. 

One of the concomitants of the state of general 
debility, is what is called nervousness. But nervous 
disorders are wholly mental. The patient often suf- 
fers more than in cases of great organic derangement. 
A disease is none the less real because it is mental, 
as the soul is the most real element of our complex 
nature. Nervousness is nothing else but a morbid 
state of the mind, and only spiritual remedies are 
adapted to its cure. The sufferings of the patient 
arise not so much from the absolute amount of pain, 
for this is usually very trifling, but from the extreme 
sensitiveness of the mind to all uneasy feelings. 
There is a morbid dread of disease, a tendency to 
watch their shifting symptoms, and perhaps an un- 
usual acuteness in their sensations. When a patient 
can be made aware that his disease is wholly mental, 
an important point is gained in the process of recov- 
ery. For a knowledge of the cause of disease is half 
of its cure. To tell a nervous invalid that his troub- 
les are all in his mind, need give no offense, if we at 
the same time exhibit a true sympathy for his suffer- 
ings, and show him that they are not less important 
because they arise from a pathological state of the 



TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 319 

inner man. To say that a patient's disease is in the 
mind, is quite a different thing from an assertion that 
nothing ails him. These are not equivalent proposi- 
tions. What are called nervous diseases, are among 
the most real of the ills to which man is subject. An 
unsound state of the mind is more to he deprecated 
than the fracture of a limb, or dislocation of a joint. 
All remedies except those of a generally hygienic na- 
ture, are ineffectual. Relief is soonest found in the 
ministry of mind to mind. A spiritual magnetism is 
a specific for all the Protean forms it assumes. Its 
unutterable horrors, its morbid dread, its sensitiveness 
to trifling pains, its melancholy and despair, are made 
to give place to the influx of faith, hope, and peace. 
The remarks we have made above in relation to the 
treatment of general debility, are equally applicable 
to the cure of the nervousness attending it. 

In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that come 
under the appropriate name of general debility, 
there is a mechanical misplacement, or falling down- 
ward of the internal organs, owing to a relaxation of 
the muscles of the abdomen which constitute their 
natural support. There is^ series of organs located 
within the trunk mutually supporting and influenc- 
ing each other. Within the thorax or chest, we 
have the heart and lungs filling its entire cavity. 



820 THE MENTAL-CUKE. 

Then comes the diaphragm, a muscular membrane, 
separating between the organs in the thorax and 
abdomen, and curving upward, forming the floor of 
the chest, the heart and lungs resting on it. Its con- 
traction draws its convex surface downward, form- 
ing a partial vacuum, and the air, by the force of its 
pressure, rashes in and fills the lungs. The more 
convex the diaphragm, the deeper and fuller is the 
breathing. The lungs are wholly passive in both 
inspiration and expiration, as much so as a sponge 
in absorbing water and yielding it up when pressed. 
In cases of general debility the diaphragm does not 
come back to its proper convexity, and consequently 
the heart and lungs gravitate downward. Under- 
neath the diaphragm are the liver, the stomach, the 
spleen, and the pancreas; below these the duodenum, 
and the intestinal canal in a sort of spiral column ; 
then the organs in the pelvic cavity. As a displace- 
ment of these organs interferes with their healthy 
functional action, it becomes an important question, 
What holds them in position, and counteracts their 
gravitating force? They evidently cannot rest on 
nothing. They are all held in their appropriate 
place by the walls of the abdomen which consist al- 
most entirely of muscular tissue. There is a series 
of muscles so arranged as admirably to adapt them 



THE MENTAL-CUKE. 321 

. to the support of the truncal organs. We have 
first the transverse muscle, extending across from 
side to side over the abdomen ; then the oblique mus- 
cles, one of them extending from the hip or fan -bone 
and back, obliquely upward, and inserted into the 
lower ribs, the other extending from the lower 
edge of the ribs, and also from the back, obliquely 
downward and fastened upon the pelvic bone and 
the white line of the abdomen; next the pyramidalis 
muscle, arising from the projecting bone of the hip 
and running up about half way to the navel, where 
it terminates in a point; and lastly, though not least 
in importance, the rectus abdominalis muscle. It 
is shaped somewhat like a suspender, and performs 
a similar office. It runs up the front of the abdo- 
men and is inserted into the lower extremity of the 
sternum or breast-bone. These muscular bands are 
so contrived, that when in a healthy condition, and 
the hody is in a perfectly erect attitude, they hold up in 
their proper place within the trunk all the internal 
viscera. When in a relaxed state, all the organs 
tend downward toward the pelvis, and by their super- 
incumbent weight crowd the pelvic organs down — 
the bladder, the rectum, and the uterus. Then the 
animal machinery works wrong, like a watch when the 
wheels are moved out of place. This misplacement 



322 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

interferes with their physiological functions. The 
cure consists in bringing the organs back into place. 
Any artificial support, as the great variety of body 
braces and supporters, affords only a temporary relief, 
but aggravates the trouble in the end. The duplicat- 
ed movements applied to the muscles of the abdomen, 
afford a better remedy, and those gymnastic exer- 
cises that call them into action are also of use. But 
no relief can be permanent until the spiritual cause 
of the trouble be removed. All depressing mental 
states destroy the healthy tone of the abdominal muscles. 
This is so manifestly the case, that mankind have 
instinctively recognized its truth in their common 
forms of speech. When we speak of one who is 
bowed down with grief ', we express a physiological fact, 
and not merely a figure of speech. It is the natural 
attitude of a man in sadness and melancholy, which 
destroys the contractility of the muscular coverings 
of the abdomen. Fear in all its forms, as anxiety, 
melancholy, and a want of faith, .relaxes the dia- 
phragm. It weakens the epigastric nerves, and 
deprives their organs of their proper cerebral stim- 
ulus. We speak of depressing mental states, and 
a sinking of the spirits, — forms of speech arising nat- 
urally from the bodily sensations which they originate. 
Depression is the act of pressing down, and when 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 323 

applied to the mind signifies a lowering of its tone 
below the normal and healthful standard, and, by 
weakening the muscular support of the organs within 
the trunk, they obey the law of gravity and press 
downward. When a person is bowed down, he feels 
as he looks. It is the natural language, the ultima- 
tion, of dejection of spirits. All that is needed to 
restore the abdominal muscles to a healthy state, is 
habitually to exercise them. The appropriate nerve- 
stimulus, or rather spiritual force, that is infused 
into them by use, will harden them as certainly as 
exercise' strengthens the arm of the blacksmith. They 
are always called into action by the respiration attending 
all happy and exhilarating frames of mind. If a patient 
can be recovered from his depressing mental condition, 
the body will become erect, without any other 
mechanical support than nature supplies. His weak- 
ness, his lassitude, his languor and fatigue will dis- 
appear. On the influence of depressing mental 
states, Dr. Andrew Combe justly observes: "The 
tendency of grief, despondency and sorrow is to pro- 
duce meditative inaction. These emotions require no 
exertion of the bodily powers, and no unusual expend- 
iture of vital energy : but rather the reverse. This 
is a condition incompatible with a quick supply of 
blood, or a high degree of respiration ; for if these were 



321 TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 

conjoined, they would only give rise to an amount 
of bodily activity at variance with the absorbed and 
inactive state of the mind. The nature of the ex- 
citing passions is to impel us vigorously to action ; 
but action cannot be sustained without a full supply 
of highly oxygenated blood, and hence a manifest 
reason for the quick respiration and accelerated cir- 
culation which attend mental excitement. Great 
depression of mind thus leads naturally to imperfect 
respiration, a more sluggish flow of blood, and the 
various diseases of diminished vitality; while exces- 
sive excitement induces full respiration, quickened 
circulation, and the various diseases of exalted vitali- 
ty. These principles show the paramount impor- 
tance, in the treatment of disease, of carefully regu- 
lating the mental state of the patient, according to 
the object we have in view." 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 325 



CHAPTER XXV. 

SLEEP AS A MENTAL STATE, ITS HYGIENIC 
VALUE, AND HOW TO INDUCE IT. 

Sleep Defined. — Its Influence upon the involuntary Physio- 
logical Processes. — Nutrition. — Circulation. — The Excre- 
ting Organs. — lis Remedial Value. — The Obstacles to it. 

— Cold Feet.— Tea and Coffee. — The Law that governs 
in Inducing it upon Ourselves. — Position of the Eye. — 
Its Effect upon the Cerebrum. — The Respiration in Sleep. 

— In the Magnetic Trance. — The moral Influence of Bleep. 

— The Order in which the Senses lose their Susceptibility to 
Impression. — Practical Directions based upon this Law. — 

SLEEP MAY be characterized as an involuntary 
and passive state of the mind. The cerebrum, 
as we have shown above, is the organ of our volun- 
tary life; the cerebellum of the involuntary vital 
movements and passive states of thought and affec- 
tion. In a state of sleep the cerebrum is quiescent, 
and the cerebellum is the organ through which the 
physiological processes are carried on. Sleep is one 
of the most important remedial agencies in nature, 



32G THE MENTAL-CURE. 

and a knowledge of the laws that govern it, and by 
which we may induce it upon ourselves, is of suffi- 
cient practical value to justify us in devoting this 
chapter to its consideration. It being a passive state 
of the muscles of voluntary motion, the no inconsid- 
erable amount of vital force thus expended can be 
employed to increase the action of the involuntary 
processes. In the period of childhood we spend much 
more time in sleep than in after-years, in old age 
much less than in the middle of our existence. This 
is one reason why the functions of the entire nutri- 
tive system are carried on with so much more vigor 
in the morning of our existence than in subsequent 
years. The state of somnolence facilitates the circu- 
lation of the blood and all the fluids of the system. 
This is owing to the withdrawal of the forces expend- 
ed in our voluntary activities, and their employment 
in increasing the vigor of all the involuntary func- 
tions, and also to the usual position of the body in 
sleep. In wakefulness and in the upright position, 
the circulation of the nutritive fluids is opposed by 
their gravity, which tends to retard their flow. The 
horizontal position being that which diminishes their 
gravitating force the most, is one which is the most 
favorable to their circulation. The diminished action 
of the ganglionic nerves of motion and of sensation, 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 327 

affords an increased, supply of cerebral stimulus to 
the excretory organs, and the waste worn out particles 
are thrown off from the system in greater profusion 
than during our waking hours. These fill the atmos- 
phere of the bedroom, so as to be more recognizable 
to our senses than they would be if we were confined 
for the same length of time in the same apartment 
while awake. Sleep is consequently peculiarly adapt- 
ed to the relief of a dry and feverish state of the 
skin, and to all diseases whose secondary causes are 
found in a defective action of the excretory functions. 
There is much of physiological truth in the reply of 
the disciples to the statement of Jesus that his friend 
Lazarus was asleep : "Lord, if he sleep, he shall do 
well." The rabbins regarded sleep as one of the 
most important of the "six good symptoms" of dis- 
ease. We feel convinced that in a great variety of 
pathological conditions, especially most cases of nerv- 
ous debility, it will be found among the best of 
nature's remedies. In the early stage of all febrile 
disorders, if the patient could induce upon himself a 
sound and normal sleep, it would prove the most effi- 
cient means of cure. But the sleep must be natural 
and not that resulting from the stupifying influence 
of narcotic drugs. There are those who have the 
power of commanding sleep at any time ; and such 



328 m THE MENTAL-CURE. 

are seldom diseased. It is their only resort in sick- 
ness. They sleep for any length of time, and when 
and where they please. 

But is sleep under the control of our volitions ? 
Not directly, but only indirectly so. It cannot be 
induced by the active or positive state of the will, 
but only by the passive or negative position of the 
volitive power. The more a nervous patient tries to 
sleep the less he feels of the somnolent influence. 
The effort to sleep is a voluntary state of the mind, 
while sleep is an involuntary and passive condition of 
both the brain and the soul. Any active volition is 
wakefulness. If we remove all obstacles to sleep, it 
becomes spontaneous, and steals over the excited 
mind and wearied powers, like the cooling breath of a 
summer evening, and we enter the pure and tranquil 
dream-land as softly as flowers close at set of sun. 
There is a powerful magnetic sympathy between the 
feet and the brain. If the feet are cold and negative, 
the head is pressed with an accumulation of the nerv- 
ous and vital forces. Restore the circulation to the 
extremities, by immersing them in water below the 
temperature of the blood, rubbing them dry w T ith the 
hand, and smiting them until they glow with vital 
heat. This relieves the brain of its congested condi- 
tion and throws it into a state favorable to repose. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 329 

Rub the back-brain with the left hand, also the back 
of the neck, so as to attract the cerebral force towards 
the cerebellum. Use your own hand or that of a 
sympathetic friend. Avoid the intemperate use of 
tea and coffee. The former, by the semi-spiritual 
essence it contains, stimulates the fore-brain to ac- 
tion, which is the organ of voluntary thought, and 
sleep becomes difficult, and sometimes impossible 
under its influence. The latter acts upon the cere- 
bral organ of voluntary motion, and its effects are 
equally unfavorable to sleep. Every article of food 
or drink tending to throw the mind or body into a 
positive state, should be avoided for the evening 
meal. Removing these hindrances, the induction 
upon ourselves of the state of somnolency, with its 
quieting, invigoratiug and restorative influences, will 
be easy. We will now proceed to unfold the laws 
by conformity to which, sleep may be self-induced at 
any time. 

We shall have to avail ourselves of a principle pre- 
viously stated and illustrated, that when the body is 
made to assume the attitude and condition that exter- 
nally manifests any mental state, it spontaneously 
arises within us. This is the key to the whole mys- 
tery of going to sleep. Let the patient assume a 
reclining position, with the head but slightly elevated 



330 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

so as to bring it only a little above a level with the 
shoulders. Then elevate the ball of the eye, rolling 
it up as it is called, as if attempting to look toward 
the back-brain. This inversion of the eye is its nat- 
ural and fixed position in sleep, as is easy to prove 
by an examination of any person, who has passed 
from the realm of external consciousness to the dream- 
land. This upward and backward movement of the 
eye, which must not be too strained or artificial, in- 
verts the action of the cerebrum, and suspends all ac- 
tive thought, terminates the voluntary states of the 
mind, which passes from the active to the passive 
state. The vital force of the cerebrum flows back to 
the cerebellum, and this, physiologically, is a state of 
sleep. The patient may not instantly become uncon- 
scious, and the mind may not immediately be with- 
drawn from the bodily senses, but he will soon sweet- 
ly lose himself to all external perceptions and sur- 
roundings, and be in the care of the angels, who, in a 
less sensuous age of the church, when it was animated 
by a higher spiritual life, and a more childlike faith, 
were supposed to guard our defenceless slumbers 
when the "Lord gave his beloved sleep." The great 
obstacle to sleep is a want of ability to suspend active 
thought. Tjie best way of doing this is to put the brain 
into the inverted and quiescent state it exhibits in 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 331 

the passive mental condition that constitutes somno- 
lence. Various methods have been employed to effect 
the necessary suspension of thought, such as counting, 
but they only change the direction of the thoughts. 
This may have its use in facilitating the process of 
going to sleep, but is not so much in harmony with 
nature as the course we have recommended above. 

It is proper also to remark, before we leave this 
subject, that the respiration in sleep is different from 
that which accompanies intense and active thinking. 
In sound. and healthy sleep the breathing is deep and 
full, calling into action the muscular coverings of the 
abdomen, while in abstract voluntary thinking, only 
the upper portion of the lungs is slightly moved. We 
have frequently had occasion to observe also, that 
when a person in passing into the magnetic coma or 
trance, he precedes his loss of external consciousness 
with a few deep inspirations. In inducing upon our- 
selves the mental >state that constitutes the essential 
thing in sleep, we do well to imitate nature in this 
respect. We have known some who have resorted 
to nothing else but this, when they wished to coun- 
teract the tendency to prolonged wakefulness, and 
with them it was found uniformly sucessful. But 
this form of respiration need not be too artificial, but 
only such as is naturally produced by simply direct- 



332 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

ing the thoughts to the frontal muscles. One object 
to be aimed at is the cessation from all active voli- 
tions. For sleep is only a natural, healthful, and 
temporary suspension of the functions of the two 
hemispheres of the cerebrum, which is the organ of 
the voluntary life of the mind and body. It is the nat- 
ural rest or repose instituted by the Author of our 
being to restore the exhausted energies of both the 
inner and outer man. In this state of passivity and 
abstraction from the bodily senses, we become inhab- 
itants, in a degree, of a better world, and recipients of 
elevating and purifying influences. So that sleep has 
its moral as well as hygienic uses. It is a mental 
state, that belongs to another world as well as thi3. 
It is one of the established means of mental progress, 
both here and hereafter. 

The withdrawal of the mind from the bodily senses 
in sleep, takes place progressively, and may exist in 
different degrees. In its first stage it is called drowsi- 
ness. When this is habitual it is denominated leth- 
argy. The senses become oblivious to impression 
from external things in a fixed order or succession. 
The sight ceases to receive impressions first. The 
sense of taste is the next to lose its susceptibility, and 
then the sense of smell. The hearing is the next in 
order, and last of all the sense of touch or feeling. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 333 

In drowsiness, which is an incipient sleep, the eye 
becomes dull and heavy, and involuntarily closes. To 
prevent the further progress of somnolence, persons 
are seen instinctively to rub the eyes, to take some- 
thing into the mouth of a strong taste, and to smell 
of something pungent, and if circumstances permit, 
to call into action the muscles of voluntary motion. 
For drowsiness or lethargy affects only the three 
senses mentioned above, together with the part of the 
cerebrum which the mind uses in voluntary motion. 
These three senses are the most external, and are at 
the outpost as sentinels. They are the most voluntary 
of the senses, and if sleep passes them, the others 
will soon surrender. In inducing upon ourselves a 
state of sleep, let the eye be closed, and turned away 
from the light, as light will affect the eye even 
through the eye-lids. If inclined to wakefulness, the 
face should not be turned toward a window of the 
sleeping apartment. The mouth must be free from 
every thing which can excite the sense of taste, and 
the atmosphere of the room must be free from all 
perfumes and the effluvia of medicine, and from any- 
thing that can affect the sense of smell. The invalid 
must be removed from all unpleasant noise or sounds 
that can excite the sensation of hearing. Though 
listening to certain agreeable and monotonous 



334 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

sounds, as the roaring of the wind in a forest, or the 
sound of distant music, facilitates the induction of 
sleep. It draws away the activity of the three senses, 
which are affected by drowsiness, and serves to induce 
that state. And lastly the body must be in an easy 
position, with as little weight of clothing as will 
serve to prevent the sensation of cold, and not enough 
to excite a sensation of heat. Observing these sim- 
ple directions, in connection with those before given, 
there are few cases where natural and healthful sleep 
may not be self-induced. 

It is proper to remark, that in awaking from sleep, 
the senses come to conscious activity in the inverted 
order in which they lose their susceptibility to impres- 
sion. The sense of touch first awakes, and that of 
sight last. Sometimes a slight touch will arouse a 
person, when our voice is unheeded by him. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 335 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

THE WILL-CURE, ACTIVE AND PASSIVE . 

Connection of the Organs with the Mind. — How to affect 
their Functional Action. — The Will-Force and the Stomach 
and Intestinal Canal. — Cause of Coldness and Weakness. 
— The Cure. — The Passive Will- Cure. — A general law of 
Health Stated. — Voluntary Movements Fatiguing. — The 
Involuntary Actions not so.'- — How to ta,ke up thy bed 
and walk. — How to walk a hundred miles a day. — The 
Interior State. — Its healthful Influences. — Passive Knowl- 
edge. — Influx of better Emotional States. — The Spirit 
tvith which to approach the Inner World. — Importance of 
our Relations to it. 

THROUGH THE grand system of ganglionic and 
sympathetic nerves, each organ in the body is 
connected with every other, and the whole with the 
mind. There is no part or function which cannot be 
affected just as certainly, though perhaps not as 
sensibly, by the will-force, as the muscles of the arm. 
To do this requires no straining, no struggle, as if 
we were going to lift a mountain from our condition, 



336 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

any more than it does to move one finger without 
the others. The pneumogastric nerve, which is 
distributed to all the organs within the cavity of the 
trunk, is the appointed conductor through which the 
mental force is communicated to them, and influ- 
ences their functional action. This important nerve 
seems to be in sympathetic connection with the or- 
gan of vitativeness, which, when fully developed 
and normally active, renders one tenacious of life, 
and affords a healthful cerebral stimulus to the vital 
organs. We have only to concentrate the mind's 
force upon any of the internal organs, as the stom- 
ach, liver, or intestinal canal, and through the 
pneumogastric nerve, its vital movements will be 
influenced. It is the divine order of our existence, 
that the mind should be the body's sovereign. 
Spirit is superior to matter; it is a higher and divin- 
er force. The one is positive ; the other negative ; one 
is an active principle ; the other a passive recipient. 
The will and the love we have shown to be identical, 
and love is the life of man. To direct the will, there- 
fore, to an organ, determines the vital force to it, 
and increases its sensibility. It is a truth de- 
monstrated by our experience, that the more our 
thoughts can be diverted from a part that is the seat 
of a painful sensation, the less we feel of it. On the 






THE MENTAL-CURE. 06 ( 

other hand, the continual concentration of the mind 
upon any portion of the system in a state of inflam- 
mation, increases the sensibility and adds to our 
sufferings. The successful practice of the will- cure 
must be based upon a sufficient degree of the knowl- 
edge of our pathological state, to enable us to judge 
when it is desirable to concentrate the mind's action 
upon a diseased part, or when to divert the spiritual 
force from it. If the stomach has become exhausted 
of its nervous force, so that its vermicular movements 
have ceased, and the food in it is a motionless and 
fermenting mass, it can be made to obey the behests 
of the sovereign mind. Concentrating the mind upon 
it, converging our spiritual force to a focus, we may 
calmly and powerfully will it to proceed to business 
and attend to its proper work, and it will obey us as 
readily and as promptly as a good servant yields to 
the orders of his employer. The same effect may be 
produced upon the action of the intestinal canal. If 
the blood and vital heat do not circulate through the 
extremities, which feel a deadly coldness, it is be- 
cause the spiritual life does not permeate the tissues. 
We may send the spiritual principle there, by the 
will-force, to distribute to the negative parts their 
share of the vital flame. For it is ever to be borne 
in mind, that the negative, weakened state of an 



838 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

organ is not caused so much by a want of blood in 
it, as it is by the absence from it of a more subtle 
element. The spiritual principle does not circulate 
freely through it. The active will-cure is peculiarly 
adapted to all negative, devitalized states of the or- 
ganism. But the mind should never be directed to 
any organ of the body while under the dominion of 
depressing emotions and feelings, as those of fear, 
anxiety, or melancholy, but we should convey to a 
diseased part only the healthy life-giving current of 
our positive and normal mental states. A little prac- 
tice will render the will-cure easy and natural, and 
we can become our own physician. Blessed is the 
man, who, in sickness or trouble, has a skillful and 
sympathetic physician for soul and body, in whom 
he may trust. But he has attained a far higher 
blessedness, who, by his knowledge of the laws that 
govern the action of the mind upon the body both in 
the generation of health and disease, is able to do 
without both physician and medicine. 

There is a less active state of the will-power which 
we have often found equally efficient, and even more 
so, in the removal of diseased conditions, especially 
with those whose nervous energies are much exhaust- 
ed. -Many patients exhibit a morbid inclination to 
watch their symptoms and sensations. The general 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 339 

law of health requires that the thoughts should be 
abstracted as much as possible from the action of all 
the organs which perform their appropriate functions 
involuntarily. They should be left to act in their 
own way without any interference with their move- 
ments. In all forms of dyspepsia attended by a too 
sensitive condition of the reticular membranes and 
mucous surface, the mind should not be directed to 
the stomach. The attention should be diverted from 
any uneasy sensations in that region. The reason of 
this we will explain. In addition to a principle pre- 
viously stated, that to concentrate the mental force 
'ipon an inflamed part intensifies its sensibility, we 
may observe that all involuntary movements and pro- 
cesses are attended with no fatigue, or loss of nervous 
energy. Illustrations of this may be seen in the res- 
piratory movements, and the systolic and diastolic 
motions of the heart. When we breathe involuntarily 
and without directing the mind to the act, the move- 
ment, though continued day and night, occasions no 
weariness, for then the spiritual force, which impels 
the respiratory apparatus, is received by influx from 
the all-surrounding spiritual world, with which we are 
in vital sympathy. But when we direct the attention 
to our breathing, and it becomes artificial and volun- 
tary, it is fatiguing. It is less wearisome to ride in 



340 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

a coach, than it is to draw it ourselves. The same 
law operates in regard to the stomach and all the in- 
voluntaiy organs. When we direct the attention to 
an involuntary organ, it exhausts its force and makes 
the discharge of its functional action all the same as 
a voluntary movement. Persons can walk a great 
distance in a day if they are not thinking of their 
movements. They then walk spontaneously and in- 
voluntarily, and the more they approach an involun- 
tary action of the muscles concerned in their mareb, 
the further they can go without fatigue. This is the 
main secret in walking a hundred miles a day, a Xeat 
some have accomplished with less weariness thai) 
others experience in going the same number of rods. 
Availing ourselves of this law, we have sometimes 
walked many miles with invalids, and they have re- 
turned from their seemingly miraculous feat of pedes- 
trianism more invigorated than when they started. 
By constantly diverting the attention of the patient, 
so that he takes no notice of his movements, nor the 
distance gone over, he can he made to go for miles, 
when before he has not thought himself able to leave 
the confined limits of the court-yard of his dwelling. 

There is a passive cure of diseased conditions of the 
body and inharmonies of mind. We may become 
quiescent, assuming an easy position, perhaps reel in- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 341 

ing with the head to the north, to bring the body in- 
to an attitude agreeing with the magnetic poles of the 
earth. Then we may transfer our mental life to the 
organ of the involuntary thoughts and affections, as 
we have directed in inducing sleep. This is the mid- 
dle state between sleeping and waking. In it the 
senses become unusually acute, especially that of 
touch or feeling, and become in a degree independent 
of their bodily organs. It is referred to by Paul, 
(2 Cor. xiii. 3), and he describes his experience while 
in it. In this state we become receptive of the bet- 
ter spiritual life of a higher sphere, which flows first 
into the interior organism and through this into the 
body. By inverting and suspending the action of the 
cerebrum, we are brought to that mysterious border- 
land situated between the two realms of being. 
Taking position on the mystic boundary-line between 
the material and spiritual worlds, the soul suspends 
active thought, and becomes the recipient of passive 
knowledge or intuition. This is a thousand times more 
accurate than that which is the result of active thought 
and reasoning. Knowledge becomes a spiritual in- 
stinct — an influx from the superior range of life. A 
bee will construct a cell with perfect mathematical ex- 
actness, so as to contain the greatest quantity in the 
smallest compass. Yet it knows nothing of geome- 



342 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

try. Its knowledge is an instinct, or a passive intel- 
ligence, received from the spiritual world. We can 
become the recipients of passive knowledge. Then 
we gain truth not by the slow and laborious process 
of reason, but as the diamond imbibes the light of the 
sun. In this state, the mind becomes perceptive of 
the spiritual causes of our diseases, and of the laws 
of life and health — a return to which is a necessary 
prerequisite to a permanent cure under any method of 
treatment. This condition of the brain and mind 
has been denominated by some the " superior condi- 
tion," but we choose to call it the interior state. The 
Swedish seer speaks of it as the "self-evidencing 
reason of love." It is eminently a spiritual and hap- 
py state. Anxieties, griefs, regrets, fears, doubts, 
self-condemnation, and all disturbances that have 
their seat in the external degree of the mind, are left 
behind, as the soul retires inward upon itself. For 
what men call evil, never invades the interior de- 
grees of the mind. All unhappiness exists on the 
lowest plane of our spiritual nature. It becomes 
admissive not only of the light of the celestial climes, 
but also of the affectional states of the angels. 
Their sphere of peace, purity and love, their calm 
and tranquil bliss, the soul imbibes, and is made to 
vibrate in concord with heavenly harmonies. In the 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 343 

interior state, the spirit retains its consciousness, and 
its memory, and on its return to the external condi- 
tion it brings down its higher knowledge, and the 
recollection of its exalted perceptions, and comes 
back laden with celestial spoils, as the spies returned 
to the desert encampment of Israel bearing with 
them the rich clusters of the grapes of the promised 
land. The tranquil soul drinks in life from perennial 
fountains. Oftentimes in the interior state, which is 
so sensitive to psychological impressions from the 
land of the blest, the lost harmony in the distribu- 
tion of the vital forces, which constitute our patholo- 
gical condition, is in a few minutes restored, and all 
morbid affections of mind and body are dispersed by 
the influx of a healthier spiritual life. Before thus 
approaching the boundaries of the other realm of 
being, it is important that we be in charity, the love 
of use, and in purity of intention. For like attracts 
its like in the spiritual world. Approaching that 
realm in any other moral attitude, we shall expose 
the susceptible inward man to the peril of imbibing 
the miasm of the Stygian pool, and the poisonous 
effluvia of disorderly spirits. The foul emanations 
of their surrounding sphere will serve to make our 
condition worse, mentally and physically. But no 
evil spirits, in this world or the next, can do us harm, 



344 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

if we approach them in the moral attitude of charity, 
and with a desire to do them good. Jesus went and 
preached to spirits in prison, or to those who were in 
bondage to disorderly and unharmonized passions, 
and the purity of his soul received no stain. And a 
good man might explore that mythic region, called 
an orthodox hell, and remain as uncontaminated as 
a sunbeam in an infected hospital. When we ap- 
proach the higher realm of being, where all is calm, 
and pure, and loving, and the outward scenery seems 
pervaded with the life of its inhabitants, and to be 
only the chrystalization of their thoughts and affec- 
tions, carrying with us an immortal desire to bless 
all mankind, and a consecration of all our activities 
to the good of universal being, our individual soul 
mingles its spark of vital force with the abyss of life 
in the heavens, and we receive back more than we 
contribute to the common stock. We come into vi- 
tal sympathy with all that is pure, and healthful, and 
living, in the land where sickness and sorrow, pain 
and death are unknown. The interior state is one 
in which, like healthful sleep, the spiritual world 
comes consciously near, and angelic influences are 
thrown around us, and we return to our usual exter- 
nal condition better in mind and body. Men are 
only just beginning to entertain some feeble concep- 



THE MENTAL- CURE. 345 

tions of the value and importance of our relations to 
the inner world, both in the generation of disease 
and its cure. In the interior state, when the mind 
retires inward upon itself, and becomes abstracted 
from all sensuous images and impressions, it rises to 
a higher plane of activity. Its intuitions are quick- 
ened, and nobler thoughts are evolved. The pro- 
foundest problems are solved by an intuitive flash of 
a higher light, and the deepest mysteries are un- 
veiled. It feels a more vivid consciousness of its 
relations to the inner world, and of our vital connec- 
tion with its immortal intelligences. It is rendered 
more sensitive to psychological impressions and 
influences from the supersensuous realms. It becomes 
receptive of the intellectual and affectional states of 
the angels. It is temporarily an inhabitant of the 
spiritual world, and so appears to those who dwell 
above. The spirit thus abstracted is actually seen 
by the angels, as if it had come among them by the 
normal process of death, which is only a complete and 
permanent state of introversion. This appearance of 
the soul among the angels, when in a state of ab- 
straction, takes place in harmony with the same laws 
by which men have appeared visibly to their friends 
at a distance, in this world. Many well authenticat- 
ed facts of this kind are on record. This temporary 



346 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

insertion of our partially freed spirit into the society 
of the celestial plains, must be productive of the hap- 
piest results, and an efficient remedy for those mental 
inharmonies, and spiritual disturbances, that are th*» 
cause of our bodily diseases. And many persons, 
while in a complete trance, have been cured by the 
reception of the angelic sphere of life, when their 
friends have deemed them dead. With the inner 
nature harmonized and renewed, and its spiritual 
forces' augmented, it has come back to consciousness 
in the body, which soon receives the influx of lift* 
from the restored spirit, and many years of health 
and usefulness have been added to their earthly exist- 
ence. The spiritual world is real and living. Its 
objects and inhabitants are not like the fantastic 
creations of a dream, unsubstantial and transient. It 
is not the abode of shadows and phantoms. It is the 
home of life, the seat of causation, the habitation 
of reality. To approach that healthful shore, is to 
inhale the atmosphere of immortality. 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 347 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLD 
UPON MENTAL HEALTH AND DISEASE 

A Self-Evident Truth. — The Law of Sympathy. — How 
Jesus bore Men's Sicknesses. — Obsession. — Its Influence 
in causing Disease. — How cured. — Experiences of Sweden- 
borg. — What is a Demon 1 — Psychological Laws stated. — 
Scriptural Statements respecting Destroying Angels. — They 
could Save Life as well. — TJie Medium through which Mind 
acts upon Matter. — Ponderable Bodies moved by Spiritual 
Forces. — The Release of Peter. — Paul and Silas: — The 
rolling away of the Stone at the Entrance of the Sepulcher. 
— The Availability of such unseen Forces. — Their Useful 
Employment. — The Plates of Copper and Zinc. — Positive 
and Negative Mental Forces. — Angelic Influence in the 
Cure of disordered Spiritual States. — The Nature of Good- 
ness. — The Angelic Ministry. — Vital Connection with the 
other World. — Nearness of the Unseen Realm. — Long- 
fellow. 

THE SUBJECT introduced into the preceding 
chapter leads us naturally, and by an easy gra- 
dation, to the consideration of the laws that govern in 
the transmission of sanative spiritual influences, and 



348 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

psychological forces, from the inhabitants of the 
inner world, for the cure of pathological states of the 
body and mind. We take it to be self-evident, that 
all the effects that can be produced by one mind act- 
ing upon another in this world, can be produced, in a 
still higher degree, in accordance with the same laws, 
by the intelligences who have graduated to the supe- 
rior range of life. But the question may be asked, 
Is it allowable and in agreement with the divine order, 
for good spirits to use the powers they manifestly 
possess for the relief of the sufferings of men ? It 
is an axiomatic truth, that a good deed, an act of 
benevolence, being in harmony with the ruling prin- 
ciple of the divine nature, is always in order. An 
opinion is current among religious people, that it 
would greatly mar the happiness of those in the heav- 
enly world to have any knowledge of the affairs of 
this world, and to feel any sympathy with the ills and 
the pains of those they have left below. Supposing 
it had that effect, what then ? We have a thousand 
times, by the law of sympathy, taken upon onrself the 
diseased feelings of a patient, both those of his body 
and mind, and thought it a far happier, as it certainly 
was a more useful life, than singing psalms, or self- 
ishly seeking the enjoyment that arises from the activ- 
ity of the devotional sentiments of our nature. Jesus 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 349 

sometimes even cured disease by taking it upon him- 
self. "Himself took our infirmities, and bore our 
sicknesses." ( Matt. viii. 17 ; Isa. liii. 4.) This did not 
destroy the calm happiness of his nature, although 
for doing it an ignorant world afterwards "esteemed 
him smitten of God and afflicted." From this sym- 
pathetic bearing of human griefs and carrying the 
sorrows and pains of men in his own person, sprang 
up in a subsequent age the great theological error of 
a vicarious atonement for sin. He was the physician 
of soul and body, and used nature's most efficient 
remedies, but never administered medicines, not even 
so much as herb drinks nor homeopathic pills. He 
sometimes relieved the sufferers by sympathetically 
taking upon himself their diseased condition, and 
assured all his followers who were willing to do the 
same, that if they should "drink any deadly thing," 
or imbibe any morbid influence, "it should not hurt 
them." The effect upon the magnetic healer is sym- 
pathetic and transient; but the benefit to the invalid 
is permanent. Whatever Jesus did, a Christian man 
might reasonably believe was proper for us and even 
angels to do. If Jesus is viewed as the highest rev- 
elation of the Godhead to the world, and was God 
manifest in the flesh, and in this character went 
about doing good to the souls and bodies of men, 



350 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

"healing all manner of sickness and disease among 
the people," the highest angel ought not to deem it 
beneath his dignity or out of order to follow his 
example. All those who worship Jesus as a God, as 
an incarnation of the Divinity, as the Word made 
flesh and dwelling among us, ought to deem it the 
highest moral attainment of a w r orshiper to be like 
the Being he adores. He spent much more of his 
time in healing the sick, and ministering to minds 
diseased, than in the devotional exercise of singing 
hymns and saying prayers. He did both these, but it 
was evidently a secondary matter, to be attended to 
when no higher use was to be accomplished. And it 
ought not to be improper for redeemed spirits to lay 
aside the golden harp, on which they are supposed to 
play so skillfully, and exchange the pleasures of 
music and devotion, for the higher and diviner enjoy- 
ment of relieving the ills that their earthly friends 
are subject to. To do the works of Jesus, cannot be 
deemed an impossibility by any one who has faith, 
though like a grain of mustard, in his plain promise 
and declaration, "The works that I do, shall ye do 
also, and greater works than these shall ye do, because 
I go to my Father." 

We take it to be a maxim, that no man should 
ever undertake by magnetic treatment to cure disease 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 



351 



alone, and by his own unaided strength. He should 
be humbly, trustingly, and passively negative toward 
the higher realm of life to receive, and intensely 
positive toward the patient to impart. He should 
be in a state of vital sympathy with Jesus, and the 
angel-world. Without divine and angelic aid he 
will be as inefficient in imparting sanative influence 
and vital force, as was the staff of the prophet, in 
the hands of his servant, to bring the apparently 
dead child of the Shunamite woman to life. 

At the commencement of the Christian era, spirit- 
ual obsessions, or as they have been called, demoni- 
acal possessions, were of frequent occurrence in Judea 
and in other parts of the world. By psychological 
influences disorderly spirits gained control over the 
subject, and so conjoined themselves to him, as to 
use his body as the instrument of their own will, and 
for the expression and manifestation of their thoughts 
and feelings. They spake through his vocal organs, 
and acted through his members. This originated, 
or at least aggravated, the diseased tendencies of 
the unfortunate sufferer. Many of the diseases, 
healed by Jesus, were thus caused, and the cure was 
effected by releasing the patient from the chains of 
this disorderly physiological influence. Similar phe- 
nomena have been exhibited in every age One of 



352 THE MENTAL-CORE. 

the most illustrious instances is found in the so-called 
Salem witchcraft. In fact all morbid conditions of 
mind and body, by the great law of sympathy by 
which we are more or less controlled, connect us with 
disordered mind in the other world, and the cure 
of disease is a casting out of devils. 

In the Arcana Celestia (5711 — 5727), the au- 
thor affirms that all diseases have correspondence 
with the spiritual world, and he gives an interesting 
account of his experience of the effects of the 
sphere of certain spirits upon his own system. 
Those whose conscience was over-scrupulous affected 
" the part of the abdomen beneath the diaphragm," 
that is the duodenum. Adulterous spirits occasioned 
pain in the periostea, or membranes investing the 
bones, and also in the loins or small of the back. 
Some induced a sense of oppression in the stomach, 
and numbness in the members and joints. Others 
caused an extreme weakness of the muscles. The 
sphere of some spirits acted upon the excrementi- 
tious matter of the brain, aggravating its deleterious 
nature. Hypocritical spirits affected him with a 
pain in the teeth and jaws. This is what might 
reasonably be expected. The teeth and jaws receive 
their cerebral stimulus from the organ of secretive- 
ness or from a part of the brain in immediate con- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 353 

nection with it. In the animal races, which are char- 
acterized by the largest development of it, we find the 
greatest strength in the teeth and jaws, as the lion, 
and the feline species generally. Hypocrisy uses the 
organ of secretiveness for its manifestation, and it 
is easy to believe that the sphere of such spirits 
would affect the teeth. The whole chapter is sug- 
gestive to one who would investigate the connec- 
tion of disorderd mental states with disease. This 
diseased spiritual influx was found to affect the bodily 
tissues, not directly, but indirectly. Its first effect 
was upon "the smallest and altogether invisible 
vessels which are continued to a man's interiors." 
This vitiation of the spiritual organism, when con- 
tinued, occasions disease and death. 

We would put the question to every man's intui- 
tive reason, that if Providence has deemed it proper 
to allow such unhappy psychological influences, as 
must, from the vital relation subsisting between the 
mind and body, either generate or intensify a diseased 
condition, if it would not be far more allowable to 
permit angelic spirits to influence men, in as great a 
degree, in the direction of a sound mind in a sound 
body? For a truthful solution of this query, we 
would send every man, for the answer, where Jesus 
himself directs him to go — to the oracular response 



354 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

of the divine light within " Why judge ye not from 
yourselves what is right?" Would it not be as 
much in harmony with every attribute of God, and as 
consistent with the principles of the divine proceed- 
ure, to permit and empower good spirits to employ 
a psychological force to heal both mind and body ? 
It is worthy of remark that the term improperly ren- 
dered devils by king James' translators, is from a 
Greek word meaning happy or prosperous, and pri- 
marily signifies good and happy spirits. In the cruci- 
ble of a false theology many good things have been 
transmuted to evil. A demon, which originally was 
a term expressive of an angelic human spirit, has 
been transformed into a devil, with all the mythic 
attributes of such a being. In. the superstitious 
alchemy of the church, the finest gold has often been 
basely alloyed, or even changed to a valueless lump 
of earth. The first definition of the word dainion or 
demon, in your Greek lexicon, will be found to be 
the Divinity, the Godhead, and the next, a guardian 
spirit. To be influenced by a demon is necessarily 
no bad thing. Socrates had a demon, but was very 
far from being possessed of the devil. Angels or 
demons came and ministered to Jesus, and may they 
not to our humanity as well ? If not, why ? 

There are several ways, in harmony with the laws 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 855 

that govern psychological influences, in which they 
may greatly aid in the cure of disease. In experi- 
ments in magnetism, and in inducing upon a subject 
the mesmeric sleep, it is found that when several per- 
sons direct their mental force to the operator, with a 
wish to aid the process of induction, it facilitates 
and increases the effect of his manipulations. This 
is among the things proved. May not angels do as 
much in increasing and intensifying the transmis- 
sion of sanative influence and vital force to an inva- 
lid under treatment by a magnetic healer ? Where 
is the impossibility of this ? Who can assign a 
reason why they either cannot or would not do it ? 
The benevolent end aimed at in the cure of disease, 
would justify the employment of all their powers, 
and it is characteristic of them that they " excel in 
strength." It is recorded in the Jewish Scriptures, 
that an angel, in one night, smote, with the blast of 
death, one hundred eighty-five thousand men in the 
camp of Sennacherib king of Assyria. Also in the 
reign of David, a destroying angel was let loose upon 
the Jewish population, and by three days of pesti- 
lence caused the death of seventy thousand people 
from Dan to Beersheba. If credit is given to these 
statements as historical facts by any one, he ought to 
find no difficulty in believing that celestial intelli- 



356 TIIE MENTAL-CURE. 

gences and the principalities and powers of heaven 
were adequate to cure here and there a patient of a 
fever or a consumption. And would it not be more in 
harmony with the known character of Him who takes 
more delight in saving men's lives than in destroying 
them, to permit them to do so ? We present these 
statements in the Jewish annals, in order to use them 
as an argumentum ad hominem, rather than as either 
crediting or justifying them ourselves. Such angels, 
surely, ought not to run at large in the universe, if 
it be true there are any such in it. 

There is a hidden semi-spiritual principle that 
operates within the body of nature, which is the 
cause of all its visible phenomena. What we call 
causation is always unseen, at least it cannot be cog- 
nized by our senses only so far as it is ultimated in 
effects. The visible world is the region of effects ; 
the unseen world is the realm of causes. The subtle 
essence to which we refer, is everywhere present and 
pervades all things, as the soul the body, and is the 
life of nature. It is the animus mundi, the soul of 
the universe. It is the intermediate essence through 
which mind acts upon matter. It is manifestly un- 
der the control of spiritual intelligences, and may be 
so concentrated upon ponderable bodies, as to enable 
them to move them by their will-force. Or it may be 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 357 

detached from the living organism of certain persons, 
as it was from the Seeress of Prevorst, and by means 
of it enable them to move solid bodies, as articles of 
furniture. A multitude of well attested phenomena 
of the kind find here a rational explanation, as 
those occurring in the Wesley family. In the early 
history of the church, it is recorded that, while the 
apostle Peter and the rest of the twelve were en- 
gaged in healing great numbers of the sick in Jeru- 
salem, ther were arrested by the Jewish authorities 
and put in prison. But at night (for darkness has 
been proved to facilitate the action of psychological 
force) an angel opened the doors of the prison, took 
off the chains from the apostles, and brought them 
forth from their confinement. In a similar way and 
by a like instrumentality, Paul and Silas, while in 
prison at Philippi, with their feet in the stocks, were 
released at midnight. The foundations of the prison 
were shaken, and the doors were opened. Angels 
also are said to have rolled away the stone from the 
mouth of the sepulcher in which Jesus was placed. 
We have no hesitation in crediting these things as 
veritable facts of history, and many others chronicled 
by ancient annalists, for the law by which they could 
be done has been discovered, and taken them out of 
the class of miracles. But the idea which we are most 



358 THE UENTAL-CCJRE. 

desirous of impressing upon the reader's mind is this : 
Here is an exhibition of a spiritual force that could 
be made available for some higher use. A force ade- 
quate to remove a ponderous stone from the entrance 
of a sepulcher, might just as easily reduce a dislocat- 
ed joint. If an angel can open a prison door, and 
take a man's feet from the stocks, and release him 
from chains, why is not the same power equal to the 
restoration of the lost equilibrium of the organic 
forces in disease? To take off a man's handcuffs is 
not a more benevolent work, nor more in accordance 
with the angelic nature, than to loose a man from 
his bodily infirmities and mental unhappiness. A 
being who is supposed «*ble to do the one, ought to 
be believed adequate to the other. The subtle, im- 
ponderable force of which we have spoken, is available 
to spirits, and even to the truly spiritual man, for the 
cure of mental and physical disorders. The organism 
that is animated by an enlightened mind and loving 
heart, and vigorous will, may become receptive of it, 
the organ of its diffusion, the reservoir of its distri- 
bution, and the radiating center of its communication. 
It can be controlled by angelic spirits, as well as we 
can direct the flow of water, or cause light and heat 
to be reflected from polished surfaces. It can be 
directed to the inner and outer organism of a diseased 



THE BiENTAL-CURE. 359 

person, just as well, and far easier, than we can turn 
a rivulet into the parched ground of a garden to 
revive its withered vegetation, or admit a ray of 
sunshine through an opening into the dampness and 
darkness of a dungeon. All the imponderable forces, 
which are now deemed correlative of the organic 
forces of the human body, may be controlled by 
spiritual agencies. 

It is practicable for us to call to our aid invisible 
powers, and the intelligent living forces of the spirit- 
ual world, in the cure of disease, or, more properly, we 
can co-operate instrumentally with them, in the relief 
of suffering humanity. Let us illustrate this by tan- 
gible representations. If you conceal in the earth a 
plate of copper, which is electrically positive, and a 
hundred miles away, another of zinc, which is a nega- 
tive substance, and then connect the two by a wire, 
there will pass from the one to the other a constant 
current of magnetic or galvanic influence, which will 
operate as long as the conjunction of the two sub- 
stances continues. A vibratory circuit is thus formed 
between the positive and negative poles. To multiply 
the number of the plates, thus connected, increases the 
effect. So between the operator and patient a con- 
junction may be formed analogous to this. The oper- 
ator is represented by the positive plate ; the patient 



360 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

by the negative. Both may be passive, or exert no 
mental force except to direct the thoughts to each 
other. They may be miles away or in the same room. 
Along the invisible cord, the odylic bond of connec- 
tion, a spiritual therapeutic influence and force may 
pass from angelic beings. A circuit of the living 
forces of the spiritual world may be formed. And he 
whose inner vision is purged, so that to him " the in- 
visible appears in sight," this vibratory current may 
be seen passing from one to the other, resembling a 
mild light. It is an essential property of spirit to 
communicate itself, its life, to others, and of good 
spirits to transmit their good to all who are admissive 
of it. The positive and negative distinction exists 
among them as well as among the inhabitants of this 
world. This is not merely a difference of sex, but 
there are those in w T hom the love-principle predomi- 
nates and controls their activities, and others in whom 
the intellect is the governing force. If those who are 
vitally positive should conjoin themselves to the oper- 
ator, and those who are negative with the person at 
the other end or pole of the odylic line, the psycho- 
logical influence would be greatly intensified and the 
effect increased. And it must never be forgotten 
that all psychical forces directed to any part of the 
organism, cause a change in its physiological move- 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 361 

ments. Under the direction of intelligence any de- 
sired result can, in this way, be effected in the action 
of the vital forces. 

But would good angels and spirits do this ? It 
is implied that they would in the fact that they are 
good, for goodness is only a desire to impart hap- 
piness and promote the well-being of others. It 
is benevolence, that is, as the word signifies, good- 
wiMing, or wishing well to the neighbor. This point 
being settled, we have only further to ask, "Is it 
possible ?" He who has but an imperfect knowledge 
of the arcane forces of nature, both in the realm of 
matter and of mind, and believes in the Scriptural and 
rational doctrine of their subjection to angelic pow- 
ers, and their passiveness under their hands, will not 
hesitate for an answer. But whatever is possible, 
such is their benevolent nature, they will do for the 
benefit of mankind, whom they love and serve. 
They are all ministering spirits, who have passed 
through the discipline of this first stage of human 
development, and have graduated to the higher life. 
We need have no more doubt of their aid in curing 
disease, than in the accepted account of the New 
Testament of their ministrations to us in general. 
In the writings of Swedenborg, it is affirmed that 
every man is attended by at least two spirits and two 



362 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

angels. These correspond to the two departments of 
the mind, the intellectual and affectional. Our con- 
nection with them was viewed by him as a vital one. 
If they were withdrawn from us, consciousness would 
be suspended, and even life become extinct. A man 
is allowed to believe the doctrine of the angelic min- 
istry or service to men, always taught by the church, 
and found in all religious systems, Pagan and Chris- 
tian, without subjecting himself to the odious charge 
of heresy, provided he does not consider it too real a 
thing, but accepts it by faith as an undemonstrated 
proposition, or an unimportant item of a creed. The 
heresy consists in the demonstration of the truthful- 
ness of the creed. For men are supposed to be 
saved much easier by faith, than by knowledge. 
Suppose it was asserted for the first time in the his- 
tory of the world, that infancy and childhood were 
accompanied by an angel guard. We might ask, " Is 
it consistent to suppose that an angel would lay aside 
his golden harp, and permit his endless round of 
devotional exercises to be suspended, to guard the 
cradle of a sleeping infant ?" Ask the love of a fond 
mother, and she will answer. Jesus also responds to 
the question. "See to it, that ye undervalue not 
one of these little ones, for I say unto you, that their 
angels in the heavens do always behold the face of 



THE MENTAL-CURE. 363 

my Father in the heavens." (Matt, xviii. 10.) We 
give the correct translation of the passage, which 
implies two things, — that little children will he un- 
folded into angels, and that angels watch over them. 
To wipe a tear from an infant's eye is not a work be- 
neath the dignity of the loving nature of the most 
exalted, finite intelligence, nor even of the Deity. 
There is no room to doubt, that what is possible, 
they will do to heal our mental and bodily maladies, 
relieve our sufferings, and add to the sum total of 
our happiness. They are human spirits, not disem- 
bodied souk, for we have shown that souls are never 
destitute of a substantial body. They feel an inter- 
est in all that concerns the welfare of humanity. 
And we may more certainly and unhesitatingly rely 
upon their aid in any work of love and mercy, 
than upon the feebler assistance of good men and 
women in this world. We may place the same con- 
fidence in them that we do in the forces of nature 
in any mechanical operation. It is no more natural 
for water by its gravitating force to run down hill 
and carry the mechanic's wheel, or for steam to ex- 
pand and do the same, than it is for a pure unselfish 
love to impart all possible good to others, and save 
them from all possible evil. In calling to our aid 
the laws gf- nature,. we have, no misgiving, no doubt, 



364 THE MENTAL-CURE. 

no unbelief. Why not have the same confidence in 
spiritual aid ? In the one case as in the other, knowl- 
edge is power. To know how a thing is done in 
harmony with nature's laws, is to be able to do it. 
And to all who are sick and in trouble, in body and 
mind, may Jesus, according to his promise, " come 
to you in the glory of the Father, and with his holy 
angels." It is one of the principles of the divine 
government, that God imparts good to men through 
the mediation of angelic human spirits. The spirit- 
ual world is not far off in the unsympathetic distance 
of the milky-way, nor separated from this by distance 
of space. 

"Some men there are, I have known such, who think 
That the two worlds — the seen and the unseen, 
The world of matter and the world of spirit- 
Are like the hemispheres upon our maps, 
And touch each other one at a point. 
But these two worlds were not divided thus, 
Save for the purposes of common speech. 
They form one globe, in which the parted seas 
All flow together and are intermingled, 
While the great continents remain distinct." 

"The spiritual world 



Lies all about us, and its avenues 
Are open to the unseen feet of phantoms 
That come and go, and we perceive them not 
Save by their influence, or when at times 
A most mysterious Providence permits them 
To manifest themselves to mortal eyes." 

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